By Paul Onomuakpokpo
In their tepid search
for solutions to the current economic crisis, our political leaders are fixated
on two culprits that gnaw at the nation’s wellbeing.
It is either the past
that is chastised for not catering for its future or the militancy in the Niger
Delta that has driven oil revenue to its nadir.
 |
| *Buhari |
We are on the right path to economic
redemption only when we appreciate the fact that the affliction that is the
source of the recession is simply that our politics reeks of a crude conflation
of national and personal interests by political leaders. Actuated by the credo
of politics that negates national interest, politicians pursue purely selfish
goals and present them to the citizens as targeted at engendering national
transformation.
Thus no matter how
potentially workable the recommendations from the citizens for the development
of their nation, most political leaders do not have that capacity to
accommodate them. And this is why all ideas about development, no matter how
ill-bred , must come from their cronies because they would not pose any threat
to their interests. Or why have all the great proposals for the development of
the nation for over five decades not launched it into the league of the
developed?
Now that there is a
flurry of suggestions from the citizens as regards how to overcome the
recession, our leaders may only take the ones that would not threaten their
personal interests. President Muhammadu Buhari has been asked to invite experts
to help him salvage the economy. Some citizens want him to invite the nation’s
best economists to proffer solutions to the economic problems. Some have even
canvassed the return of former Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
The former minister has already said she would not be ready to serve under the
Buhari government when she is invited as she wants other people to contribute
their own quota to development. Okonjo-Iweala may not even be an acceptable
choice having been tainted by her association with the Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP) when she served its government. She is still subjected to excoriation for
triggering the crisis in the first place by her feckless economic management.
