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Monday 2 February 2015

THAT SOLUDO'S RESPONSE...

Professor Soludo
Photo Credit- Bella Naija
I’m not a fan of lengthy articles. Especially ones with big grammar, or on areas I find very boring- like economics. But Professor Charles Soludo’s response to Madam Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s rebuttal was just a pleasure to read and was more than worth the time spent digesting it. Firstly, it didn’t have all the economic mumbo jumbo I would have expected from a Professor of Economics. It was written very explanatorily, such that lay people like me can understand the piece and appreciate the message therein. It was also quite the eye opener. And for the first time in a very long while, I am excited enough to write a piece relating to politics in Nigeria.


Every news coming out of Nigeria in the last few months has been about the forth coming presidential elections, with supporters of the two main candidates mud slinging each other via social media platforms with true, half-true and completely false propaganda, that the recycled true and untrue stories have become really boring to read. Of course the traditional media outlets have not been left behind with AIT now a full PDP TV station, and Punch newspaper fully supporting the APC amongst others. I’m not judging anybody oh. After all, man must wack. And really, the election period is about the only time masses in Nigeria can get freebies from their politicians and government. Stomach infrastructure now reigns supreme in Nigeria since Fayose introduced and won through it, in his own campaign early last year. Our politicians are now seriously using this means to try to buy the citizens’ votes. I just sincerely hope that Nigerian voters are not as stupid as these politicians think we are. Anyway, back to Soludo’s piece.



APC’s Buhari and PDP’s Jonathan have, along with their party entourage, each visited almost every state in Nigeria, asking people to vote for them and promising to do a zillion and one things while attacking the opposition as usual. But a mere five minutes listening to their campaign promises will immediately let you know that these two are only saying what they know the rented crowds want to hear and cheer. They don’t talk about how they would go about achieving these promises, they just say they would get it done. Abi dem go do am with black magic?


So in his first piece released last week, Soludo raised the question most Nigerians should be asking (instead of arguing over which candidate is a Christian or which one has an Islamic agenda) wherein he questioned how the presidential candidates planned to save a crippling Nigerian economy whose condition is getting worse by the day. Of course, with his degree, experience and previous position as CBN governor, when Soludo talks about Nigeria’s economy, any Nigerian with good sense should listen up and take notes. And listen up, Madam Ngozi did.


I won’t go into details of Madam Ngozi’s response. But suffice it to say that her rebuttal can be divided into three parts: One offering various excuses for the ailing areas in the economy which Soludo pointed out in his piece, another pointing out achievements by the Jonathan administration in some sectors of the economy, and the other focused on attacking the messenger. Comparing Madam’s response against Soludo’s piece, I would say most of the points the latter raised was left very much unanswered. But how do you respond to things you don’t even have an answer to?


Reading Soludo’s reply to Madam Ngozi’s rebuttal has left me really scared for Nigeria, its economy, and its future. Of course we already know about most of the points Soludo raised, we just did’t have the intrinsic details like him. And most of those who do certainly don’t have the guts to speak up for fear of being roped into the propaganda making the rounds now, I guess. I keep asking myself how things got this bad. Things weren’t this bad under Obasanjo, and they certainly weren’t this bad under Yar’Adua. The Nigerian treasury seems to be leaking on all sides, with trillions missing here and there and the excess crude account practically emptied. Surely, corruption and mismanagement has done us in. Most Nigerians are suffering, and still we are busy abusing ourselves on social media and supporting the candidate from our own part of country for President.


I certainly do not see the solution to Nigeria’s myriad problems in either PDP or APC. I personally think that, even though each party has one or two good people therein, they represent both sides of the same bad coin. And for me, that’s the most unfortunate thing about the forthcoming elections- having to choose between two clearly bad options. But be that as it may, I salute Professor Soludo for his courage to bring these issues again to fore and give Nigerians tangible issues to think about as we go to ballot on in a fortnight.

If you have the time and are interested in reading the full gist of Soludo's response, here's the link from Sahara Reporters.

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