How competent are the economic managers?

IT is belaboring the issue when we continue to say there is hunger in the land. That Nigerians are finding it difficult to meet their obligations. That most Nigerians walking the streets are weigh down by the burden of how to exist from day to day, feed their families and if so (un)lucky, their extended families and aged parents. It is also a notorious fact, to borrow from the ‘learned profession’, that more Nigerians are attempting suicide. An act that is totally alien to the Nigerian culture. Indeed, it is very rare to see a Nigerian attempting suicide, we so much ‘enjoy life’ that the country was at one point dubbed a country of the happiest people in the world. So what went wrong? Why is it that Nigeria, populated by happy-go-lucky individuals who enjoy life to the fullest, became a country of despondent, depressed people who feel the best way out of their situation is to commit suicide?
From the information gathered so far, reasons given by those who took the easy way out have always been the economy. They said they could no longer cope. A man who was rescued from the Mile2 rivers was heard blaming the president before he jumped into the waters. Another man who took his life in Aboru, a suburb of Lagos also claimed that he decided to end it because he could no longer cope and would not watch while his children languish in want. The story goes on.
Unfortunately, what those who commit suicide failed to understand is that suicide is a cowardly act. It is the easy way out. It is unmanly and most importantly, it creates more problems, especially for the people left behind, than solving any.
The situation thus brings me back to the Nigerian economy that has totally unmanned so many men. That has made fathers the object of ridicule in the family. That has made it difficult for fathers to exercise authority over their family and made them object of ridicule in the eyes of their children. Today, most fathers’ blood pressure has shot up because the school holiday is gradually ending. The children must go back to school and that signals another round of school fees payment. How would the father who could not even drive out his car or move out on account of not having money cope?
To the Nigerian economic managers. How competent are they? Are they doing the right thing? Frankly speaking, it is a difficult question to answer. Going by the layman’s measurement of a good economy, it does not look so. Prices of goods are rising. Essential things are moving beyond the reach of the common man.  We have been told that our mono economy and over reliance on oil has brought us to this sorry pass. But former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor and the Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi holds a different view at a lecture he delivered in Kano during the 15th meeting of the Joint Planning Board and National Council on Development Planning. In that lecture which he entitled, ‘Nigeria in Search of New Economic Growth’, the Emir put a lie to the claim that the drop in prices of oil led to the economic recession. His reason is hinged on the fact that the contribution of oil to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is insignificant.
“Those making noise about oil should stop making noise about it.  People should stop being afraid, because oil is not critical. It is just a working capital. We sell it.  We get the dollars that we use to import. If you can find another source of working capital, we can do without it. It is 15 percent of GDP.
When I was governor of Central Bank, the economy was growing at 37 percent. The oil sector was not adding anything to GDP growth. The growth was coming from agriculture, services and trade, which is also very revealing. If we are now saying we are in a recession, because of the collapse in oil price, we are not being sincere.
You can’t be in recession, because a sector that is 15 percent of your GDP has declined. What happened to agriculture, trade, services and health?”
The Goodluck Jonathan administration had been blamed severally by the present administration, that it frittered away the money generated from oil sales, but one can argue conversely that the money frittered away only constitute 15 percent of GDP assuming the entire money was stolen.  This should not have brought Nigeria to the present situation and nobody has come out to dispute the Emir. Thus going by his premise, the government should just shut up and face its job squarely and get us out of the economic morass we are in.To buttress the Emir’s assertion, Nigerians have equally argued that when President Olusegun Obasanjo took over in 1999 after several years of military adventure and misrule, oil was only $9 per barrel.  He put his hands on the plough and the work began. Nigeria paid off its debt burden. It was then that GSM technology eventually birthed notwithstanding what is being said that he only came to birth what the military government had conceptualized. Is that not the essence of governance- continuity? He recovered our money stashed in different parts of the world from the mindless looting of our treasury by the late Gen. Sani Abacha.
He did not make the recovery of Abacha loot the cardinal programme of his administration to the detriment of other areas the way this government is doing. He did not dwell in the past or blame the rulers before him for all the country’s woes. He knew he had a big task ahead of him and he embarked on it. Obasanjo did not say the overall development of the country was hinged on the looted funds. He brought in technocrats who helped to galvanise and sustain the economy.
But what do we have today? Technocrats or pretenders to that title. Why has it become so difficult to do anything after more than one year of taking over the reins of governance? Even if the Jonathan administration had mismanaged the economy, what has this government been able to do to correct the problem? Has the problem not worsened under the present administration’s watch? It is therefore obvious that there is problem of competence in this government. I wish I am proved wrong, but the overall picture presently does not give indication that competence is at work. We are only assailed with rhetorics. Priorities are wrong. Thorough understanding of the economic issue seems lacking and no attempt is being made to bring those competent to do the job on board, rather, anti-corruption agencies are sicced on them.
It is poor judgement and lacking in perspective and not getting the priority right that would make a state governor spend about N120million to buy about 3000 coffins and distribute to mosques in his state. What is at the back of the governor’s mind? Is that the priority in his state? Is he expecting more of his people to die when other parts of the world are thinking of how to sustain live? Did it not occur to him that economic independence also leads to long life and this could have been achieved if he had given out the money to individuals in his state to trade with. It would have helped in improving the quality of life in his state.
The present trend must be reversed. President Buhari should come to the realization that Nigerians are disenchanted in spite of the contrary report he must have been getting from those who surrounds him which has manifested in their utterances in recent time. The government should also realize that those who criticize do not really hate the administration, but are only interested in improvement and how things could be better done.