There are several reasons I like to get the take of professionals in any national discourse. Technocrats and professionals have a way of adding robustness to a debate. Unlike my supposedly knowledgeable friends who shout change, bigot, baseless or tribal when Buhari is criticized, Charles Soludos has brought his wealth of knowledge and experience, haven been in government before, to the raging debate. It is indeed heart warming for some of us who are always searching for reason and who do not take things on their face value. Two things especially gladden my heart personally in Soludos nonpartisan article. One of them is a validation of my long held view that the Babangida administration is perhaps the most foresighted we have had in my living memory, and the other is that the Buhari administration, before Babangida, was planless and had no direction. What immediately jumps out at any discerning reader of the Soludo article is the subtle application for a job he made by disparaging every economic planner but himself. In mentioning how planless Buhari was back in 83, and pointing out that APC has not articulated a policy direction, Soludo was in essence saying, I am available, hire me when the time comes. Soludo went further to cast aspersions on the economic management team of the country at the moment and even took a swipe at Peter Obi, former Anambra state governor. He sort to achieve points by pulling data from here and there. Soludo seemed to be talking from two sides of his mouth when he lambasted the former Anambra state governor for saving money and not building anything ( which is not true anyway) and then praised a government he served in for building up foreign reserves without mentioning that they left no motorable road, no good airports and no railway system. Soludo may want to plead amnesia if he doesnt remember that the highest bank layoff were in the period he was in government. He forgets that just to witch hunt political opponents Savannah bank and Allstates trust bank had to go. He forgets the crises that led to many banker friends of mine losing jobs. Some have not recovered to this day. Soludo fed us statistics that I think only him and the people at his level are privy to. I say this because, even Ota farms was dying in the days of him and Obasanjo in power. If you ask any haulage company, and I own one, the evacuation of agric produce from different parts of the country was virtually impossible during the Obasanjo era because of bad roads. How then did they come up with any growth in the agriculture sector? My village has the biggest agric settlement in the country. Left to rot and decay, except for subsistence agriculture by the lease holders to survive, there was zero output during the Obasanjo era even when he came and declared delta state the arrow head of Nigerias drive to regain agriculture. Just around me, in the last four years or so, at least 12 people I know have been motivated to enter agriculture. All of them because of ready agric loans available. It is either I am lucky to be around them or we can safely say it is a reflection of what is presently happening across the country. And you know what? If statistics and quotes from big books and papers is anything to go by, the present administration has some to show too; the corruption index has improved modestly, the economy is said to be the largest in Africa and is project to be among the three fastest growing in the world this year. But some of us dont listen to or celebrate such statistics. We look around us and make deductions. For example, in real estates, when I moved into my medium scale estate 7 years ago, there were about 10 houses. Today there are about 180 houses and plenty more springing up. At an average cost of 30 million naira each, what this means is that the estate has grown from almost zero seven years ago, to about 5 billion naira today. Again, unless I am plain lucky to be living among these people, I will still assume it is a reflection of the entire country. I can pretty much say I am sure of this when I consider the speed of development in lagos, Delta state, Anambra state and IMO state and the city of Enugu. These are places I am fairly familiar with. There is something else to pick from here; because people like Soludo didnt effectively educate Nigerians, whether in the class room or informally, that masons, carpenters and the likes are jobs, we erroneously call the people who have been building all the homes I mentioned, unemployed. Consequently, we continue to have a wrong employment/unemployment data. The average take home for these level of workers is 100k monthly. Well above our official minimum wage. Soludo, in mentioning Dangote twice or three times, forgot to mention that the economic policy he and his boss ran glaringly encouraged monopoly and people like Dangote got richer at the expense of the masses they swore to work for. I wonder if Soludo knows that with a good rail system in place, Dangote cement and other products would have found their ways to the consumers at cheaper prices. I wonder if he knows the carnage Dangote trucks currently wrought on our highways because our rail system, that they should use, were dead and just being revived. Before my summation, let me give my laymans statistics, or how to get them; Look at the number of Nigerians traveling yearly for just holidays in the past 5 years. It is an indication of a middle class just picking up. Look at the number of Nigerians who were living abroad but just returned to start or manage a business in the last 7 years. It is an indication that the business climate is beginning to be favorable. Look at the number of real estates built and being built in the last 6 years. 90% without loans from any Soludo or Obasanjo introduced scheme. It is an indication that wealth is trickling in or down. My summation is a kudos to Soludo for contributing to this national discourse. His nonpartisan article however has to be seen for what it is, a good job application.
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 10:01:15 +0000
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