By Ayo Oyoze Baje
“The
only way out of the valley is uphill”
–Anonymous
If there is one persisting, yet critical issue of
national importance that must be frontally tackled by the incoming
administration, after May 29, 2023 it has to be that of drastically reducing
the huge burden of the cost of governance. So debilitating it has become that
it is weighing down the steps towards economic recovery. Though the cost
of governance is incurred by the government in the course of providing goods
and services to the citizenry, the statistics on its effects on the national
economy and the human development index are humongous and unsustainable.
*President Buhari
For instance, as at April 2023 it was revealed that Nigeria reportedly spends 96.3 percent of its revenue on debt servicing! That is up from 83.2 per cent in 2021. And the World Bank has raised a timely warning on how the fiscal deficit has worsened the nation’s public debt stock. But that is just part of the scary figures on our worsening economic paradigm.
