By Dele Sobowale

“Wise skepticism is the first attribute of a good critic”. James Russell Lowell, 1819-1891. (VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS p 222).

The two most engaging Ministers in President Jonathan’s lackluster cabinet, are, arguably, Messrs Adewunmi (Ade), the Federal Minister of Agriculture and Aganga (Segun), the Federal Minister of Trade and Investment. They are both eminently erudite, impeccably dressed, full of mesmerizing data, big dreamers and mostly misleading.

Going to a public meeting, where those two are going to be featured, calls for two things. One, the listener must not leave his brain behind at home. Two, the listener, after engaging the brain, should also employ the inner ear. Biologists and Ear, Nose and Throat specialists, among doctors, call that part of the anatomy Eustachian tube.

Important as the biological inner ear is, when Ade and Segun are making official pronouncements, you need to listen to what they say, with your biological inner ear. But, in addition you need to develop the ability to hear what they failed to announce – which invariably makes nonsense of what your Eustachian tube had delivered to you.

What Ade and Segun (they should start a show by that name, like Laurel and Hardy in the early days of television) do best is to make announcements that would induce standing ovations for themselves by making promises which they know cannot be fulfilled in the time allotted. Then, they later make follow-up announcements to give the impression that “everything is on course”. Lie.

Segun has still not escaped from the lie about 1.3 million jobs which he claimed was created by the Bank of Industry, BOI, which the bank told me was not the case. But, the fellow in incorrigible when it comes to making promises about jobs. Thus, on Monday, March 4, 2013, he was again promising on behalf of the Federal Government, at the kick-off on the National Enterprise Development Programme, NEDEP, to create 3.5 million jobs. These were his exact words.

President Goodluck Jonathan

“Our objective is that, within the next two years of implementing NEDEP, the programme will generate 3.5 million jobs and an estimated five million direct and indirect jobs”. That is vintage Sege”. Right away, he has created problems of arithmetic. First, “within the next two years” should mean by March 2015.

Is that what the Minister is promising? Next, “generate 3.5 million jobs and an estimated five million direct and indirect jobs” would imply that we should actually expect 8.5 million jobs by 2015. Is that what the Minister is saying? It is doubtful if ninety-nine percent of those who must have clapped with great enthusiasm, at the occasion, obviously, after leaving inner ears at home, asked for clarifications.

The obfuscation was probably deliberate and it is not the Minister’s business if the people clapping don’t know that 8.5 million is 250% of 3.5 million. Furthermore, 146,000 jobs per month will be expected to be created if 3.5 million is the target; 354,000 jobs per month if 8.5 million jobs are to be expected.

Well, as we say, at Unijankara, “it is the buyer’s fault if he fails to ask if the horse is blind”. (VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS p 24). The important question is: can Nigerians believe a Minister who had deceived them about jobs created before? Personally, I cannot and there is another reason for great doubt.

Any financial analyst would tell you that an aggregate figure, like 3.5 million, must be the total of its components. I have yet to see the breakdown, state by state, as well as the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, of figures making up the 3.5 or 8.5 million.

Who, for instance will be creating the jobs in Borno, Yobe or Plateau States; or Bayelsa for that matter?

Perhaps, it was a mere coincidence that Aganga, aimed for 3.5million. His close friend, Dr Adewunmi, had, in July 2012 announced as follows. “I want to make Nigeria self-sufficient in rice by 2015. I want to create 3.5 million jobs in the agriculture sector by 2015”. (THISDAY, July 29, 2012, p 16).

That was a statement which if later found to be true should earn the speaker the right to rule Nigeria for eight years. But, what has been the real achievement since we were so thrilled by the high-sounding promises about eighteen months ago?

“Nigeria’s yearly consumption of rice is about 5.5 million metric tonnes. While 1.8 million metric tonnes is produced locally” (PUNCH, March 8, 2013 p 30). Even a stark illiterate knows that we currently produce one third of our needs – after over hundred years of planting the grain. Who, except Dr Adewunmi and his “worshippers”, in his right senses actually believes we can increase our rice output by 3.8 million tonnes in two years. At least on this subject, I regard myself as an expert.

I had planted, harvested and bought paddy rice for milling and parboiling at Kalambina Road, Sokoto and I played a role in promoting the Goronyo damn as a key part of the Fadama project. Nothing in my experience tells me we can double the yield of rice or any other crop in two years – or even five years. If that is so, the question is: why did Adewunmi promise what he knew damn well he could not deliver? Now, he is releasing falsified records of achievement of food production — which cannot be substantiated.

The promise to create 3.5 million jobs by 2015 deserves the same response as the vow to make the nation self-sufficient in rice during the same period. They were made more for applause, than to be taken seriously. And their number one audience is the President, who apparently, will believe anything provided it is said with feigned conviction and it sounds good to his outer ears.

Unfortunately, we lack a president with a well-developed inner ear and who could tell a Minister, “My friend, that is a lot of bull shit” as late President Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1908-1973, used to tell cabinet members whose proposals were too true to be believed.

Of course, it takes a well-developed inner ear to hear those things that the sleek talkers deliberately leave. They count on two eventualities – each likely to occur. One, they might be out of office before the time they promised to deliver. When that happens, nobody blames them at all.

Some might blame their successor who finds the promises impossible to redeem; while the former Minister goes round telling everybody who cares to listen, that he could have done it if left to continue his good work. Two, Ministers can always count on our collective amnesia.

Nigerians forget the promises made to them soon after they are made. It is highly possible that less than 1,000 Nigerians remembered what Adewunmi said in July of 2011. Extreme poverty dulls the senses. Now that we are halfway to 2015, the Minister of Agriculture must honourably tell us if rice self-sufficiency is still a possibility by 2015 or apologise to us.

Personally, I think the promises to create 3.5 million jobs or 8.5 million by 2015 are, to borrow part of Johnson’s words, loads of cow manure. Anyone planning with those figures in mind would need to go and have his/her head examined.

LAST LINE: From their utterances, you would think the two Ministers would slay the monster of high level of unemployment, if those phantom jobs are created. Nothing of the sort will happen. More than seven million jobs will need to be created each year to make a dent in that regard.