I should remind you Mr President elect that your to-do list is as tall as you are or even much taller. So hit the ground running. I don’t expect you to wait till May 29, the hand over date to wake up to the reality of being the elected president of the country.
So who is in your cabinet? Do you have a list. If you don’t have one yet, name them today. If you don’t, we will begin to question your integrity and miss-read your intensions for the people who elected you. We will readily conclude that you are under pressure from your god-fathers to appoint their stooges into your government. I don’t think you will like the garbage that will come with such mantra.
You have spoken so eloquently about ‘killing’ corruption, your voice has been heard all over the world about your morbid intentions for boko haram sect, you’ve talk also about the economy-albeit- mutedly. So, to whom will you hand the whip to?
Nigeria basically lost a huge chunk of its potential ruling class at all levels: politicians, technocrats, doctors, nurses and even entrepreneurs in the last 16 years of missed opportunities. Everybody went abroad because the ruling class had no idea of how to harness their potentials.
You don’t have to look far to find the reasons, causes and even excuses for the exodus. They have their roots in corruption and institutional inefficiency. The outcome- rampant and callous recruitment process that leads to hundreds of deaths and ‘plenty’ of cash exchanging hands to get a mention for a government job; new businesses struggling to raise ‘bribe money’ to get a business name; civil servants demanding bribe to find your application file; merit thrown through the window in making truly impactful decisions and of course endless wait and tons of bribe money exchanging hands to get a C of O for your business premise.
16 years (if you include the military era which lasted for about three decades) of wasteful allocation of public resources means that simple projects like the East-West road still languishes, the second Niger Bridge is still a ‘long story’ (terminology used mostly by Nigerians to mean ‘deceit or deceitful’), education is dead already-the list of the negatively impacted is endless. This entire group of bright minds took off because they saw no structure to build a future on.
There are a whole lot of problems to fix. So what will your approach be? Would it be a controlled statesmanlike approach that is reassuring, and which will be reflected in the people chosen to work with you?
Importantly, Nigerians will want to immediately see broad details of your economic transformation agenda alongside the political framework to accompany and accomplish that too. If it fails to convince, we can point you to the right direction before May 29.
If you may, I can point to some institutions that require urgent and sweeping diagnosis. First among the many bad ideas is the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). This corporation has always been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Get a guy with a strong scraping knife to fix it. Another one is the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). This one only requires strengthening. Resuscitate the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC). It has gone to sleep. Make the Central Bank of Nigeria a better institution with the right type of person, an economist not a historian who don’t understand economics or the language spoken by economists.
I understand that a whole range of vested interest will be hovering around you and distracting you in this process. Ignore them and their pressure and get down now to dealing with the immediate task ahead.
Charles Okoh
charles.okoh@s19080.p615.sites.pressdns.com/en
