PMB, listen to Sanusi and Soludo

The recent admonition by the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Sanusi Lamido Sanusi II, to the effect that the federal government should avoid the mistakes of the immediate past administration that plunged the nation’s economy into the current quagmire should be taken seriously.
Alhaji Sanusi spoke against the backdrop of the present economic downturn and the consequent hardships being faced by the populace. The fiery monarch stated this at a Special Session of the 15th Joint Planning Board and National Council on Development Planning held in Kano. He also urged the present government to stop blaming the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan for the current economic challenges in the country, and emphasised that Buhari himself has also made some mistakes.
He said: “There is nothing we are facing today that we did not know would happen. We made mistakes, many of them deliberate. We ignored every single warning.
“We should not continue to blame the previous administration, as we have also made some mistakes in the current administration.
“We must retrace our steps; otherwise we may fall into the same trap we fell into the last time when the government always thought it was doing the right thing.
“The bottom line is that if your policy is wrong, it is you that must change.”
The emir opined that the inability of the government to create employment opportunities for the over 80 million youths in the country was responsible for the current security challenges and high level of criminality.
Speaking in the same vein, former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Professor Chukwuma Soludo, flayed President Muhammadu Buhari’s economic policies, stressing that the administration “has not come to terms with the economic realities of the day, as he has failed to combat the economic challenges confronting the nation”.
Prof. Soludo spoke at the 4th Progressive Governance Lecture series with the theme “Building the Economy of States: Challenges of Developing Inclusively-Sustainable Growth”, organised by the Progressive Governors Forum in Kaduna. He noted that Buhari’s economic policies were still based on campaign promises over one year into his administration.
He further observed that Nigeria was facing unprecedented and tremendous political and economical challenges within the context of global and local dynamics.
“Regardless of these challenges,” he stressed, “opportunities and possibilities abound if we address some fundamental issues. The key to achieving this is to have a development plan that is anchored on realising inclusive and sustainable growth.
“Inclusive and sustainable growth cannot be achieved without conscious efforts to deconstruct the dynasties of poverty and maximise states and Nigeria’s comparative and competitive advantage. Nigeria is not secure and can only be made politically stable through the de-strangulation of states by the federal government”.
According to him, the country is consequently grappling with political, economic and social shocks.
It is an open secret that the nation’s economy is in recession. And the federal government officially made a pronouncement to that effect penultimate Wednesday. According to the statistics released by the CBN, Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP) declined by 0.36 per cent in the first quarter, and by 2.06 per cent in the second quarter of the year.
Also, a new data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBC) put the crude oil production at 1.69 million barrels per day. And by implication, the economy nosedived by 0.42 million barrels per day in the first quarter.
Although the federal government had eventually admitted that the economy was in a bad shape, its response to Sanusi and Soludo’s admonitions was hasty and ill-advised.
It would be recalled that President Buhari in a swift reaction to Sanusi’s scathing remarks charged those who intend to advise his government on any issues of national interest to do so through the official channel. He specifically directed Sanusi and monarchs generally to officially communicate their thoughts in writing.
The presidency’s response was indicative of the fact that the admonitions by the two prominent Nigerians who know their onions were taken in bad faith. It should not really matter how a message is delivered. What should matter, in this instance, is the import of the message which is in the overall interest of the nation.
President Buhari will be playing the wise man by learning from the mistakes of the past government(s) rather than from his own follies. We think these were the counsels that Sanusi and Soludo intended to offer to his administration.