By Dele Sobowale
“0802-263-5938
Kindly react to d statement credited to a gov from one of d eastern states justifying kidnapping by his people as a retaliation for the failed banks and crashed stock exchange….”

The governor, whoever he is, must be totally out of his mind. Are the people of the South-East the only ones affected by the failed banks and the crashed stock market? However, the text message arrived just in time as this second part of the series was about to start. It was intended to help people, who forget very easily, contributions made in the past to avert disaster.

The contributions were ignored by public officials; abuses were heaped on me, usually by their “brothers and sisters” who felt they must defend their ethnic group whether right or wrong but the disasters occurred as foretold.

When banking “con-soludo-tion” was announced by the former CBN Governor after less than six months in office, somel people, including this writer, took the position that while consolidation (as opposed to “con-soludo-tion”) made eminent sense, more time was required to make it work than the banks were given — without sharp practices.

The CBN governor was adamant on the deadline.When later the banks started the sharp practices that would eventually doom Nigerian banking, a series of articles were written on this very page warning about the dangers ahead.

The responses from our Southeastern brothers to those columns were hostile. Some claimed I was a tribalist who sees nothing good in other tribes; others said I was not in the same intellectual class as Soludo and still others maintained I was jealous. Few even addressed the issues raised. But, the banks failed as predicted and the sharp practices have now been exposed. How many have sent a text acknowledging that they were warned but ignored the warning?

Similarly, in May, August and November 2008, a series of articles predicted the stock market crash – at a time the Director General was promising a market rebound. She had since repeated the announcement of imminent more than a dozen times. Yet the market capitalization in May 2008 was over N10 trillion; today it is less than N6 trillion and she, like Soludo, will soon pass into history.

Again the reactions to my articles were swift in coming –tribalist, low intellect compared to “Madam Obama” and one funny fellow even suggested that the woman might have refused my advances. To me the failure of genius, and the two officers are extremely brilliant, stemming from the arrogance of genius, was more important than their ethnic group. Indeed, if they were called Sobowale, my articles would not have changed by one word.

The economist must at all times be concerned more by the fate of societies than individuals who occupy transient public posts.

Far from being acclaimed geniuses were Obasanjo and Yar’Adua. Yet, when the PDP first nominated and then got, “my brother” Obasanjo (s)elected as president in 1999, I never stopped from the first day till he left office, proclaiming that he was the wrong man for Nigeria; that Ekwueme should have been a better choice if we really wanted democracy to thrive.

As usual, his supporters wanted to know if there was something personal in my remarks. They could not, of course, accuse me of tribalism that time. Yar’Adua/Jonathan followed with the unwieldy seven-point agenda; I counseled three – power, roads and resolution of the Niger Delta conflict for the first term and others for the second –if ever there was a second.

Today, we have made very little progress on all but the Niger Delta. This time it was the turn of our northern brothers to accuse me of, you guessed it, tribalism and a secret desire to see Obasanjo achieve his third term ambition – as if OBJ could return to power after the 2007 (s)elections.

Let me end by making one observation about our reading habits – although it is no great secret that Nigerians, even university graduates, don’t read much – if at all, by citing an example. If a President proposes a deficit budget in which the deficit amounts to about 20% of the total budget, several consequences will follow depending on other measures to be taken.

Two of them are inflation (i.e higher consumer prices) and higher interest rates especially if it is planned to finance the deficit by borrowing from commercial banks or by Ways and Means (meaning borrowing from the Central Bank and forcing the bank to print more money).

Irrespective of whether the President is Obama, Sarkozy, Suzuki or Jonathan, the economist knows what will be the consequences and he must state it – if he is faithful to his profession. While the presidents of the USA, France and Japan, as well as their advisers/supporters, will not take such comments as “attack” on or “abuse” of their president, the Nigerian, if he is from South South or a supporter of Jonathan regards, what is after all a professional comment, as attack or abuse.

Such is our ignorance and the columnist finds himself, weekly, having to read text messages from people who don’t understand the imperatives of economic principles simply because it makes them and their chosen candidate(s) uncomfortable.

Let me on that note jump into another economic war which is already raging and, as usual, I am on the war front, my hand on the trigger ready to fire away at those who want to intimidate the majority of us privately employed. Our opponents are public servants; whether employed, appointed or (s)elected. This time it is MINIMUM WAGE WAR.
MINIMUM WAGE AND THE SILENT MAJORITY –1
0803-341-0110

….Honestly can you imagine a family man living on that min wage?
“0803-581-8967

My worst fear is that in their search for ‘popularity’ they are embarking on policies capable of destroying the economy beyond redemption. The new minimum wage of N18,000 (recall our labour leaders asked for N50,000) reminds one of the late Idi Amin who was reported to have told his aides: “go and print more money” and stop complaining about lack of funds! Mike.
“0803-359-3310

..The minimum wage needn’t stress government; 240% of little or nothing is little or nothing, which is what the old wage is. The problem is with the great disparities in the public sector wages..there [should] not be wide disparities such that a minimum wage earner would need 8 years to earn a top civil servant’s monthly pay, not even that of an Assembly member! MEA.

I have selected for text messages which represent the views of many who have responded to what was really a diversion on minimum wage. Of the two in favour of the minimum wage, the first tried to be offensive but he still had a message. I have left out the annoying parts and preserved the important message. The second widened the debate by extending to wage disparities. This will be addressed briefly; even though it is not central to my point.

The third, cautions against it. So we are on our way to a war of words –hopefully. As the C-I-C of the silent majority, let me open with a salvo. One of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated on the vast majority of working Nigerians – non-public servants -was the notion that “worker” means public servant. It is not true!