Former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)
governor, Professor Charles Soludo, has
been on sabbatical leave in Nigerian after
his failed ambition to govern his home-
state of Anambra.
The former economic adviser to former
president, Olusegun Obasanjo, in this article
published on Omojuwa.com, takes President
Goodluck Jonathan’s administration to the
cleaners and tasks both the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) and the All
Progressives Congress (APC) to outline
clearly their plans for the dwindling Nigerian
economy.
Read below:
“I need to preface this article with a few
clarifications. I have taken a long sabbatical
leave from partisan politics, and it is real fun
watching the drama from the balcony.
Having had my own share of public service
(I do not need a job from government), I
now devote my time and energy in pursuit of
other passions, especially abroad. A few
days ago, I read an article in Thisday
entitled “Where is Charles Soludo?”, and my
answer is that I am still there, only that I
have been too busy with extensive
international travels to participate in or
comment on our national politics and
economy. But I occasionally follow events at
home. Since the survival and prosperity of
Nigeria are at stake, the least some of us
(albeit, non-partisan) must do is to engage
in public debate. As the elections approach,
I owe a duty to share some of my concerns.
In September 2010, I wrote a piece entitled
“2011 Elections: Let the Real Debate Begin”
and published by Thisday. I understand the
Federal Executive Council discussed it, and
the Minister of Information rained personal
attacks on me during the press briefing. I
noted more than six newspaper editorials in
support of the issues we raised. Beside
other issues we raised, our main thesis was
that the macro economy was dangerously
adrift, with little self-insurance mechanisms
(and a prediction that if oil prices fell below
$40, many state governments would not be
able to pay salaries). I gave a subtle hint at
easy money and exchange rate
depreciations because I did not want to
panic the market with a strong statement.
Sadly, on the eve of the next elections,
literally everything we hinted at has
happened. Part of my motivation for this
article is that five years after, the real debate
is still not happening.
The presidential election next month will be
won by either Buhari or Jonathan. For
either, it is likely to be a pyrrhic victory.
None of them will be able to deliver on the
fantastic promises being made on the
economy, and if oil prices remain below $60,
I see very difficult months ahead, with
possible heady collisions with labour, civil
society, and indeed the citizenry. To be
sure, the presidential election will not be
decided by the quality of ‘issues’ or
promises canvassed by the candidates. The
debates won’t also change much (except if
there is a major gaffe by either candidate
like Tofa did in the debate with Abiola). My
take is that more than 95% of the likely
voters have pretty much made up their
minds based largely on other
considerations. A few of us remain
undecided. During my brief visit to Nigeria, I
watched some of the campaign rallies on
television. The tragedy of the current
electioneering campaigns is that both
parties are missing the golden opportunity
to sensitize the citizenry about the
enormous challenges ahead and hence
mobilize them for the inevitable sacrifices
they would be called upon to make soon.
Each is promising an El-Dorado.
Let me admit that the two main parties talk
around the major development challenges—
corruption, insecurity, economy
(unemployment/poverty, power,
infrastructure, etc) health, education, etc.
However, it is my considered view that none
of them has any credible agenda to deal
with the issues, especially within the context
of the evolving global economy and
Nigeria’s broken public finance. The UK
Conservative Party’s manifesto for the last
election proudly announced that all its
programmes were fully costed and were
therefore implementable. Neither APC nor
PDP can make a similar claim. A plan
without the dollar or Naira signs to it is
nothing but a wish-list. They are not telling
us how much each of their promises will
cost and where they will get the money.
None talks about the broken or near
bankrupt public finance and the strategy to
fix it.
In response to the question of where the
money will come from, I heard one of the
politicians say that the problem of Nigeria
was not money but the management of
resources. This is half-truth. The problem is
both. No matter how efficient a father (with
a monthly salary of N50,000) is at
managing the family resources, I cannot see
how he could deliver on a promise to buy a
brand new Peugeot 406 for each of his three
children in a year. Even with all the
loopholes and waste closed, with increased
efficiency per dollar spent, there is still a
binding budget constraint. To deliver an
efficient national transport infrastructure
alone will still cost tens of billions of dollars
per annum even by corruption-free, cost-
effective means. Did I hear that APC
promises a welfare system that will pay
between N5,000 and N10,000 per month to
the poorest 25 million Nigerians? Just this
programme alone will cost between N1.5
and N3 trillion per annum. Add to this the
cost of free primary education plus free meal
(to be funded by the federal budget or would
it force non-APC state governments to
implement the same?), plus some millions of
public housing, etc.
I have tried to cost some of the promises by
both the APC and the PDP, given alternative
scenarios for public finance and the
numbers don’t add up. Nigerians would be
glad to know how both parties would fund
their programmes. Do they intend to
accentuate the huge public debt, or raise
taxes on the soon to-be-beleaguered
private businesses, or massively devalue the
naira to rake in baskets of naira from the
dwindling oil revenue, or embark on huge
fiscal retrenchment with the sack of labour
and abandonment of projects, and which
areas of waste do they intend to close and
how much do they estimate to rake in from
them, etc? I remember that Chief Obafemi
Awolowo was asked similar questions in
1978 and 1979 about his promises of free
education and free medical services. Even
as a teenager, I was impressed by how he
reeled out figures about the amounts he
would save from various ‘waste’ including
the tea/coffee served in government offices.
The point is that at least he did his
homework and had his numbers and I give
credit to his team. Some 36 years later, the
quality of political debate and discourse
seems to border on the pedestrian. From the
quality of its team, I did not expect much
from the current government, but I must
confess that I expected APC as a party
aspiring to take over from PDP to come up
with a knock-out punch. Evidently, from
what we have read from the various
versions of its manifesto as well as the
depth of promises being made, it does not
seem that it has a better offer.
Let me digress a bit to refresh our memory
on where we are, and thus provide the
context in which to evaluate the promises
being made to us. Recall that the key word
of the 2015 budget is ‘austerity’. Austerity?
This is just within a few months of the fall in
oil prices. History repeats itself in a very
cruel way, as this was exactly what
happened under the Shehu Shagari
administration. Under the Shagari
government, oil price reached its highest in
1980/81. During the same period, Nigeria
ratcheted up its consumption and all tiers of
government were in competition as to which
would out-borrow the other. Huge public
debt was the consequence. When oil prices
crashed in early 1982, the National
Assembly then passed the Economic
Stabilization (Austerity Measures) Act in one
day— going through the first, second, and
third readings the same day. The austerity
measures included the rationing of ‘essential
commodities’ and most states owed salary
arrears. Corruption was said to be
pervasive, and as Sani Abacha said in that
famous coup speech, ‘unemployment has
reached unacceptable proportions and our
hospitals have become mere consulting
clinics’. General Muhammadu Buhari/
Tunde Idiagbon regime made the fight
against corruption and restoration of
discipline the cardinal point of their
administration which lasted for 20 months. I
am not sure they had a credible plan to get
the economy out of the doldrums (although
it must be admitted that poverty incidence in
Nigeria as of 1985 when they left office was
a just46%— according to the Federal Office
of Statistics).
We have come full circle. If the experience
under Shagari could be excused as an
unexpected shock, what Nigeria is going
through now is a consequence of our
deliberate wrong choices. We have always
known that the unprecedented oil boom (in
both price and quantity—despite oil theft) of
the last six years is temporary but the
government chose to treat it as a permanent
shock. The parallels with the Shagari regime
are troubling. First, at the time of oil boom,
Nigeria again went on a consumption spree
such that the budgets of the last five years
can best be described as ‘consumption
budgets’, with new borrowing by the federal
government exceeding the actual
expenditure on critical infrastructure.
Second, not one penny was added to the
stock of foreign reserves at a period Nigeria
earned hundreds of billions from oil. For
comparisons, President Obasanjo met about
$5 billion in foreign reserves, and the
average monthly oil price for the 72 months
he was in office was $38, and yet he left
$43 billion in foreign reserves after paying
$12 billion to write-off Nigeria’s external
debt. In the last five years, the average
monthly oil price has been over $100, and
the quantity also higher but our foreign
reserves have been declining and exchange
rate depreciating.
I note that when I assumed office as
Governor of CBN, the stock of foreign
reserves was $10 billion. The average
monthly oil price during my 60 months in
office was $59, but foreign reserve reached
the all-time peak of $62 billion (and despite
paying $12 billion for external debt, and
losing over $15 billion during the
unprecedented global financial and
economic crisis) I left behind $45 billion.
Recall also that our exchange rate
continuously appreciated during this period
and was at N117 to the dollar before the
global crisis and we deliberately allowed it
to depreciate in order to preserve our
reserves. My calculation is that if the
economy was better managed, our foreign
reserves should have been between $102 –
$118 billion and exchange rate around
N112 before the fall in oil prices. As of now,
the reserves should be around $90 billion
and exchange rate no higher than N125 per
dollar.
Third, the rate of public debt accumulation
at a time of unprecedented boom had no
parallel in the world. While the Obasanjo
administration bought and enlarged the
policy space for Nigeria, the current
government has sold and constricted it.
What debt relief did for Nigeria was to
liberate Nigerian policymakers from the
intrusive conditionalities of the creditors and
thereby truly allowing Nigeria independence
in its public policy. How have we used the
independence? Through our own choices,
we have yet again tied the hands of future
policymakers. This time, the debt is not
necessarily to foreign creditor institutions/
governments which are organized under the
Paris club but largely to private agents
which is even more volatile. We call it
domestic debt. But if one carefully unpacks
the bond portfolio, what percentage of it is
held by foreign private agents? And I
understand the Government had removed
the speed bumps we kept to slow the speed
of capital flight, and someone is sweating to
explain the gyrations in foreign reserves. I
am just smiling!
In sum, the mismanagement of our
economy has brought us once more to the
brink. Government officials rely on the
artificial construct of debt to GDP ratio to tell
us we can borrow as much as we want.
That is nonsense, especially for an
economy with a mono but highly volatile
source of revenue and forex earnings. The
chicken will soon come home to roost.
Today, the combined domestic and external
debt of the Federal Government is in excess
of $40 billion. Add to this the fact that
abandoned capital projects littered all over
the country amount to over $50 billion. No
word yet on other huge contingent liabilities.
If oil prices continue to fall, I bet that
Nigeria will soon have a heavy debt burden
even with low debt to GDP ratio.
Furthermore, given the current and capital
account regime, it is evident that Nigeria
does not have enough foreign reserves to
adequately cover for imports plus short term
liabilities. In essence, we are approaching
the classic of what the Shagari government
faced, and no wonder the hasty introduction
of ‘austerity measures’ again.
Fourth, poverty incidence and
unemployment are also simultaneously at
all-time high levels. According to the NBS,
poverty incidence grew to 69% in 2010 and
projected to be 71% in 2011, with
unemployment at 24%. This is the worst
record in Nigeria’s history, and the paradox
is that this happened during the
unprecedented oil boom.
One theme I picked up listening to the
campaign rallies as well as to some of the
propagandists is the confusion about
measuring government “performance”. Most
people seem to confuse ‘inputs’, or
‘processes’ with output. Earlier this month, I
had a dinner with a group of friends (14 of
us) and we were chit-chatting about
Nigeria. One of us, an associate of President
Jonathan veered off to repeat a propaganda
mantra that Jonathan had outperformed his
predecessors. He also reminded us that
Jonathan re-based the GDP and that
Nigeria is now the biggest economy in
Africa; etc. It was fun listening to the
response by others. In sum, the group
agreed that the President had
‘outperformed’ his predecessors except that
it is in reverse order. First, my friend was
educated that re-basing the GDP is no
achievement: it is a routine statistical
exercise, and depending on the base year
that you choose, you get a different GDP
figure. Re-basing the GDP has nothing to
do with government policy. Besides, as
naira-dollar exchange rate continues to
depreciate, the GDP in current dollars will
also shrink considerably soon.
We were reminded of Jonathan’s agricultural
‘revolution’. But someone cut in and noted
that for all the propaganda, the growth rate
of the agricultural sector in the last five
years still remains far below the performance
under Obasanjo. One of us reminded him
that no other president had presided over
the slaughter of about 15,000 people by
insurgents in a peacetime; no other
president earned up to 50% of the amount of
resources the current government earned
from oil and yet with very little outcomes; no
other president had the rate of borrowing;
none had significant forex earnings and yet
did not add one penny to foreign reserves
but losing international reserves at a time of
boom; no other president had a depreciating
exchange rate at a time of export boom; at
no time in Nigeria’s history has poverty
reached 71% (even under Abacha, it was 67
-70%); and under no other president did
unemployment reach 24%. Surely, these are
unprecedented records and he surely
‘outperformed’ his predecessors! What a
satire!
One of those present took the satire to some
level by comparing Jonathan to the
‘performance’ of the former Governor of
Anambra, Peter Obi. He noted that while Obi
gloated about ‘savings’, there is no
signature project to remember his regime
except that his regime took the first position
among all states in Nigeria in the
democratization of poverty—- mass
impoverishment of the people of Anambra.
According to the National Bureau of
Statistics, poverty rose under his watch in
Anambra from 20% in 2004 (lowest in
Nigeria then) to 68% in 2010 (a 238%
deterioration!). Our friend likened it to a
father who had no idea of what to do with
his resources and was celebrating his fat
bank account while his children were dying
of kwashiorkor. He pointed out that since it
is the likes of Peter Obi who are the advisers
to Jonathan on how to manage the
economy (thereby confusing
micromanagement which you do as a trader
with macro governance) it is little wonder
that poverty is fast becoming another name
for Nigeria. It was a very hilarious evening.
My advice to President Jonathan and his
handlers is to stop wasting their time trying
to campaign on his job record. Those who
have decided to vote for him will not do so
because he has taken Nigeria to the moon.
His record on the economy is a clear ‘F’
grade. As one reviews the laundry list of
micro interventions the government calls its
achievements, one wonders whether such
list is all that the government could deliver
with an unprecedented oil boom and an
unprecedented public debt accumulation. I
can clearly see why reasonable people are
worried. Everywhere else in the world,
government performance on the economy is
measured by some outcome variables such
as: income (GDP growth rate), stability of
prices (inflation and exchange rate),
unemployment rate, poverty rate, etc. On all
these scores, this government has
performed worse than its immediate
predecessor— Obasanjo regime. If we
appropriately adjust for oil income and debt,
then this government is the worst in our
history on the economy. All statistics are
from the National Bureau of Statistics.
Despite presiding over the biggest oil boom
in our history, it has not added one
percentage point to the growth rate of GDP
compared to the Obasanjo regime especially
the 2003- 07 period. Obasanjo met GDP
growth rate at 2% but averaged 7% within
2003- 07. The current government has been
stuck at 6% despite an unprecedented oil
boom. Income (GDP) growth has actually
performed worse, and poverty escalated.
This is the only government in our history
where rapidly increasing government
expenditure was associated with increasing
poverty. The director general of NBS stated
in his written press conference address in
2011 that about 112 million Nigerians were
living in poverty. Is this the record to
defend? Obama had a tough time in his re-
election in 2012 because unemployment
reached 8%. Here, unemployment is at a
record 24% and poverty at an all-time 71%
but people are prancing around, gloating
about ‘performance’. As I write, the Naira
exchange rate to the dollar is $210 at the
parallel market. What a historic
performance! Please save your breathe and
save us the embarrassment. The President
promised Nigeria nothing in the last election
and we did not get value for money. He
should this time around present us with his
plan for the future, and focus on how he
would redeem himself in the second term—if
he wins!
Sadly the government’s economic team is
very weak, dominated by self-interested and
self-conflicted group of traders and
businessmen, and so-called economic team
meetings have been nothing but showbiz
time. The very people government exists to
regulate have seized the levers of
government as policymakers and most
government institutions have largely been
“privatized” to them. Mention any major
government department or agency and
someone will tell you whom it has been
‘allocated’ to, and the person subsequently
nominates his minion to occupy the seat.
What do you then expect? The economy
seems to be on auto pilot, with confusion as
to who is in charge, and government largely
as a constraint. There are no big ideas, and
it is difficult to see where economic policy is
headed to. My thesis is that the Nigerian
economy, if properly managed, should have
been growing at an annual rate of about
12% given the oil boom, and poverty and
unemployment should have fallen
dramatically over the last five years. This is
topic for another day.
So far, the Government’s response to the
self-inflicted crisis is, at best, laughable.
They blame external shocks as if we did not
expect them and say nothing about the
terrible policy choices they made. The
National Assembly had described the 2015
budget as unrealistic. The fiscal
adjustments proposed in the 2015 budget
simply play to the gallery and just to pander
to our emotions. For a $540 billion
economy, the so-called luxury tax amounts
to zero per cent of GDP. If the current trend
continues, private businesses will come
under a heavy crunch soon. Having put
economics on its head during the boom
time, the Government now proposes to
increase taxes during a prospective
downturn and impose austerity measures.
Unbelievable!
Fortuitously, just as he succeeded Shagari
when Nigeria faced similar situations, Buhari
is once more seeking to lead Nigeria. But
times have changed, and Nigeria is largely
different. First, this is a democracy and
dealing with corruption must happen within
the ambit of the rule of law and due process.
Getting things done in a democracy requires
complicated bargaining, especially where
the legislature, labour, the media, and civil
society have become strong and
entrenched. Second, the size, structure and
institutions of the economy have
fundamentally altered. The market
economy, especially the capital market and
foreign exchange market, impose binding
constraints and discipline on any regime.
Third, dealing with most of the other issues
— insecurity, unemployment/poverty,
infrastructure, health, education, etc, require
increased, smarter, and more efficient
spending. Increased spending when the
economy is on the reverse gear?
If oil prices remain between 40- 60 dollars
over the next two years, the current policy
regime guarantees that foreign reserves will
continue the precipitous depletion with the
attendant exchange rate depreciation, as
well as a probable unsustainable escalation
in debt accumulation, fiscal retrenchment or
taxing the private sector with vengeance.
The scenario does not look pretty. The poor
choices made by the current government
have mortgaged the future, and the next
government would have little room to
manoeuvre and would inevitably undertake
drastic but painful structural adjustments.
Nigerians loathe the term ‘structural
adjustment’. With falling real wages and
depreciating currency, I can see any belated
attempt by the government to deal with the
bloated public sector pitching it against a
feisty labour. I worry about regime stability
in the coming months, and I do not envy the
next team.
The seeming crisis is not destiny; it is self-
imposed. However, we must see it as an
opportunity to be seized to fundamentally
restructure Nigeria’s political economy,
including its fiscal federalism and mineral
rights. The current system guarantees
cycles of consumption loop and I cannot
see sustainable long term prosperity without
major systemic overhaul. The proposals at
the national conference merely tinker at the
margins. In totality, the outcome of the
national conference is to do more of the
same, with minor amendments on the
system of sharing and consumption rather
than a fundamental overhaul of the system
for productivity and prosperity. President
Jonathan promises to implement the report
of the national conference if he wins. I
commend him for at least offering
‘something’, albeit, marginal in my view. I
have not heard anything from the APC or
Buhari regarding the national conference
report or what kind of federalism they
envisage for Nigeria.
In Nigeria’s recent history, two examples
under the military and civilian governments
demonstrate that where the political will
exists, Nigeria has the capacity to overcome
severe challenges. The first was under
President Babangida. Not many Nigerians
appreciate that given the near bankrupt
state of Nigeria’s finances and requirements
for debt resolution under the Paris Club, the
country had little choice but to undertake
the painful structural adjustment programme
(SAP). I want to state for the record that the
foundation for the current market economy
we operate in Nigeria was laid by that
regime (liberalization of markets including
market determined exchange rate, private
sector-led economy including licensing of
private banks and insurance, de-regulation,
privatization of public enterprises under
TCPC, etc). Just abolishing the import
licensing regime was a fundamental policy
revolution. Despite the criticisms, these
policy thrusts have remained the pillars of
our deepening market economy, and the
economy recovered from almost negative
growth rate to average 5.5% during the
regime and poverty incidence at 42% in
1992.
Under our democratic experience, President
Obasanjo inherited a bankrupt economy
(with the lost decade of the 1990’s GDP
growth rate of 2.2% and hence zero per
capita income growth for the decade). His
regime consolidated and deepened the
market economy structures (consolidation
of the banking system which is powering the
emergence of a new but truly private sector-
led economy and simultaneously led to a
new awareness and boom in the capital
market; telecommunications revolution; new
pension regime; debt relief which won for
Nigeria policy independence from the World
Bank and Paris Club; deepening of de-
regulation and privatization including the
unbundling of NEPA under PHCN for
privatization; agricultural revolution that saw
yearly growth rate of over 6% and remains
unsurpassed ever since; sound monetary
and fiscal policy and growing foreign
reserves that gave confidence to investors;
establishment of the Africa Finance
Corporation which is leading infrastructure
finance in Africa; backward integration policy
that saw the establishment and growth of
Dangote cement and others; established
ICPC and EFCC to fight corruption, etc). The
economy roared to average yearly growth of
7% between 2003 and 2007 (although
average monthly oil price under his regime
was $38), and poverty dropped from
estimated 70% in 1999 to 54% in 2004.
Obasanjo was his own coordinating minister
of the economy and chairman of the
economic management team— which he
chaired for 90 minutes every week. I met
with him daily. In other words, he did not
outsource economic management.
We expected that the next government after
Obasanjo would take the economy to the
next level. So far, we have had two great
slogans: the 7-point agenda and currently,
the transformation agenda. They remain
empty slogans without content or direction.
Let me suggest that the fundamental
challenge for the next government on the
economy can be framed around the goal of
creating twelve million jobs over the next
four years to have a dent on unemployment
and poverty. The challenge is to craft a
development agenda to deliver this within
the context of broken public finance, and an
economy in which painful structural
adjustments will be inevitable if current
trends in oil prices continue. Most other
programmes on corruption, security, power,
infrastructure, etc, are expected to be
instruments to achieve this objective.
So far, neither the APC nor the PDP has a
credible programme for employment and
poverty reduction. The APC promises to
create 20,000 jobs per state in the first year,
totalling a mere 720,000 jobs. This sounds
like a quota system and for a country where
the new entrants into the labour market per
annum exceed two million. If it was
intended as a joke, APC must please get
serious. On the other hand, President
Jonathan targets two million jobs per
annum but his strategy for doing so is a Job
Board— another committee of sort. Sorry,
Mr. President, a Job Board is not a strategy.
The principal job Nigerians hired you to do
for them is to create jobs for them too. You
cannot outsource that job, Sir. Creating 3
million jobs per annum under the unfolding
crisis would task our creativity and audacity
to the limits.
I heard one politician argue that once we fix
power, private sector would create jobs. Not
necessarily! Well, this government claims to
have added 1,700MW to the national grid
and yet unemployment soars. Ask Greece,
Spain, etc with power and infrastructure and
yet with high unemployment. Structural
dislocations play a key role. For example,
currently in Nigeria, it is estimated that more
than 60% of graduates of our educational
system are unemployable. You can
understand why many of us are amused
when the government celebrates that it has
established twelve more glorified secondary
schools as universities. I thought they
would have told us how many Nigerian
universities made it in the league of the best
200 universities in the world. That would
have been an achievement. Surely, creating
millions of jobs in this economy would,
among other things, require ‘new money’
and extraordinary system of coordination
among the three tiers of government plus
the private sector. Unfortunately, from what
I read, the CBN is largely likely to be asleep
at this time the country needs the most
revolutionary finance. This is a topic for
another day. Only the President can lead
this effort. Moreover, we are waiting for the
two parties/candidates to spell out HOW
they will create jobs, whether it is the
20,000 jobs per state by APC or 2 million per
annum by President Jonathan. Let us know
how you arrived at the figures. Whichever of
the two that is declared winner will have his
job cut out for him, and I expect him to
declare a national emergency on job
creation.
Surprisingly, none of the parties/candidates
has any grand vision about African
economic integration, led by Nigeria. There
is no programme on how to make the naira
the de facto currency of ECOWAS or the
international financial centre that can attract
more than $100 billion per annum. Where is
the strategy for orchestrating the
revolutionary finance to power the economy
during this downturn? For President
Jonathan, I find it shocking that the most
important initiative of his government to
secure the future of the economy by Nigeria
refusing to sign the ruinous Economic
Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the
European Union is not even being
mentioned. President Obasanjo saved
Nigeria from the potential ruin of an
ECOWAS single currency while to his credit
Jonathan safeguarded our industrial sector/
economy by refusing to sign the EPA. Or
does the government not understand the
import of that? It will be interesting to know
the APC’s strategy for exploiting strategic
alliances within Africa, China, and the world
for Nigeria’s prosperity.
If Buhari wins, he will ride on the populist
wind for “change”. Most people I have
spoken to who have decided to vote for
Buhari do not necessarily know the specifics
of what he would offer or how Nigeria would
be different under him. I asked my driver,
Usman, whom he would vote for President.
He responded: “If they no rig the election, na
Buhari everybody go vote for”. I asked him
why, and his next response sums it: “The
man dey honest. In short, people just want
to see another face for that villa”. But if he
wins, the honeymoon will be brief and the
pressure will be immense to magically
deliver a ‘new Nigeria’ with no corruption, no
Boko Haram or insecurity, jobs for everyone,
no poverty, infrastructure and power in
abundance, etc. As a first point, Buhari and
his team must realize that they do not yet
have a coherent, credible agenda that is
consistent with the fundamentals of the
economy currently. The APC manifesto
contains some good principles and wish-
lists, but as a blue print for Nigeria’s
security and prosperity, it is largely hollow.
The numbers do not add up. Thus, his first
job is to present a credible development
agenda to Nigerians.
The second key challenge for Buhari and his
team will be to transit and transform from a
group of what I largely refer to as aggrieved
people’s congregation to build a true
political party with a soul from the
patchwork of political associations. It is
surely easier to oppose than to govern.
This should not worry us much. After all,
even the PDP which has been in power for
16 years is still an assembly of people held
together by what I refer to as dining table
politics. I am not sure how many members
can tell you what their party stands for or its
mission and vision for Nigeria. The third but
more difficult agenda is cobbling together a
truly ‘progressive team’ that will begin to
pick the pieces. The lesson of history is that
the best leaders have been the ones who
went beyond their narrow provincial
enclaves to recruit talents and mobilize
capacities for national transformation. In
Nigeria’s history, the two presidents who
made the most fundamental transformation
of the economy, Babangida and Obasanjo,
were exceptional in the quality of the teams
they put together. I therefore pray that
Buhari will be magnanimous in victory – if
he wins—to put together a ‘team Nigeria’ for
the rescue mission.
If Jonathan wins, then God must have been
magnanimous to give him a second chance
to redeem himself. Most people I know who
support Jonathan do so either out of self-
interest or fear of the unknown. As a friend
summed it: the devil you know is better than
the angel you do not know. One person
assured me that we would see a ‘different
Jonathan’ if he wins as he has been rattled
by the harsh judgment of history on his
presidency so far. I just pray that he is
right. In that case, I would just draw the
President’s attention to two issues:
First, beside the coterie of clowns who
literally make a living with the sing-song of
transformation agenda, President Jonathan
must know that it remains an empty slogan.
His greatest challenge is how to save
himself from the stranglehold of his largely
provincial palace jesters who tell him he has
done better than God, and seek out
‘enemies’ and friends who can help him
write his name in history. Propaganda won’t
do it.
Second, Jonathan must claw back his
powers as President of Nigeria. He largely
outsourced them, and must now roll his
sleeves for a new beginning. I take liberty to
tell you this brutal truth: if you are not re-
elected, there is little to remember your
regime after the next few years. On 7th
January 2004, I made a special presentation
to an expanded economic management
team to set agenda for the new year (as
chief economic adviser). The focus of my
presentation was for us to identify seven
iroko trees that would be the flagship
markers for the administration as well as
how to finance them. I use the same
framework to evaluate your administration.
What I say to you, Mr. President, is that your
record of performance so far is like a
farmland filled with grasses. Yes, they are
many but there is no tree, let alone any
iroko tree, that stands out. Think about
this. The beginning of wisdom for every
President in his second term is to admit that
he is racing against time to cement his
legacy. So far, your report card is not
looking great. You need a team of big and
bold thinkers, as well as with excellent
execution capacity. So far, it is not working!
Under the executive presidential system,
Nigerians elected you to manage their
economy. You cannot outsource that job.
Our constitution envisages a federal
coordination of the economy, and that
function is performed by the National
Economic Council (NEC) with Vice-President
as chairman. Indeed, the constitution and
other laws of Nigeria envisage the office of
the VP as the coordinator on the economy.
All major economic institutions of the federal
government are, by law, chaired by the Vice-
President including the national planning
(see functions of the national planning
commission as coordinator of federal
government economic and development
programmes), debt management office,
National Council on Privatization, etc. As
chairman of National Planning (with
Ministers of Finance, Agriculture, CBN
governor, etc as members), the VP oversees
the federal planning and coordination. Then
the Constitution mandates the VP as
representative of the federal government to
chair the NEC, with only CBN governor and
state governors as members—to coordinate
national economy between federal and
states. No minister is a member of NEC.
Many people do not understand the logic of
the design of our constitution and the role of
the VP. Of course, the buck stops on the
desk of Mr. President. Only the President
and VP have our mandate to govern us.
Every other person is an adviser/assistant. I
bet that you will only appreciate this article
AFTER you leave office. Now that you are in
power, truth will only hurt! Be assured that
those of us who are prepared to die for
Nigeria will never spare you or anyone else
this bitter truth.
Nigeria must survive and prosper beyond
Buhari or Jonathan!”
In a related development, Mr.Tony Elumelu,
the founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation
and chairman of Heirs Holdings, has
announced the launch of t he Elumelu Nigeria Empowerment Fund.
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