Showing posts with label Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Show all posts

Thursday, October 12, 2023

South-East Summit: When Ndigbo Met And Talked

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Many “experts” on Igbo affairs who claim to know everything about the people than Ndigbo know about themselves abound in Nigeria. And one of the ridiculous tales they bandy about when it suits them is that Ndigbo have neither the capacity to come together, nor agree on anything. “They can never speak with one voice,” they pontificate in their desperation to ridicule an entire race even as they also accuse the same people of being clannish, apparently oblivious of the oxymoron.

*Aba, commercial city of Abia State 

But there is absolutely no basis for such a claptrap. Yes, Ndigbo may be republican in their worldview but enlightened collective-interest comes in to aggregate those differences in opinion in situations of existential crisis such as they are facing now. That was exactly what happened in Owerri, Imo State capital, on September 28 and 29 when they gathered for the consequential South-East summit on security and economy.

Monday, February 13, 2017

Buhari, Payment Of N5000 To The Unemployed And The Future Of Nigeria

By Arthur Agwuncha Nwankwo
The phrase “robbing Peter to pay Paul” is not new to us. It was in 1661 AD that Peter Heylyn in his Ecclesia Restaurata sought to explain the origin and import of this phrase. Though his attempt has been punctured severally by other etymologists, the phrase suggests a calamitous sequence of events where, before the Reformation, taxes had to be paid from the treasury of St. Peter’s church in Rome to defray the running costs of St. Paul’s church in London. At this time, the lands of Westminster upon which St. Paul’s church stood had become so dilapidated and badly run by Bishop Thirlby, that there was almost nothing left to support its dignity. Originally it referred to neglecting the Peter tax in order to have money to pay the Paul tax. In its proper context, this phrase simply means solving one problem in a way that makes another problem worse. 
*Dr. Arthur Nwankwo 
When this type of approach is adopted in managing the economy of a state the outcome is always disastrous especially for countries with teething economic problems. That is what I call casino or lottery economy and no country makes progress in this type of scenario. Even Adam Smith, variously referred to as the father of economics did not prescribe this type of voodoo economics despite the fact that some modern economist have interpreted his economic model as laissez-faire economics because of his insistence that the best policy by which a state can manage its economy was to leave the economy to the free play of market forces. 

Evidently, the interpretation of Smith’s postulations as laissez-faire economics could be linked to his polemics against what he called mercantilism, which was based on the principle of “robbing Peter to pay Paul”. One important role of the government in managing the economy is to provide the institutional framework required for competitive markets to function. In other words, a well-structured political system should be able to provide a secure framework for the market system to work efficiently. 

More broadly, the role of the state is to protect the members of society, both as participants in market transactions and in their private lives, from violence and invasion from other societies and oppression by other members of society. A good reading of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations will reveal that although well-functioning markets are good for society, individual producers might well find it in their individual interests to limit competition by entering into “conspiracies against the public”. Therefore, an important role for government is to design an economic system that as far as possible discouraged the creation of private cartels and monopolies. Buhari’s economic management policies since he came on board are deficit on this principle.

I recall vividly that one of the numerous campaign promises by Buhari is that his administration would pay every unemployed Nigerian the sum of N5000 every month as welfare package pending such a time the person will be gainfully employed. At the time the promise was made and now, I have always maintained that this promise is neither feasible nor achievable for several reasons. I have read from the papers that Jigawa state government has slated March this year for the commencement of disbursement of this money to the unemployed and the poorest youths in the State. 

Thursday, September 22, 2016

Buhari Needs No Recession Experts

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 
Our current leaders can keep avoiding culpability for the nation’s economic recession. The danger is that any optimism about overcoming the crisis in a short time may soon evaporate as long as our political leaders fail to recognise that it is not only the past that is sullied by the administration of Goodluck Jonathan and his predecessors that should be blamed, but the present that is anchored on the current administration is equally complicit.
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.