In the year 1987, after an exhaustive study, personally funded, I sent a detailed report to Babangida’s Minister of Transport (name withheld for personal reasons) pointing out that in a few years, motorcycles (okada or achaba) would become the major means of urban transport on account of SAP.

“Of course you cannot know a man completely, his character, his principles, sense of judgment, not till he shows his colors, ruling the people, making laws. Experience, there’s the test”.

In all my years in the US, I never read of a president “commissioning” a state project. Jonathan seems set to break the “Mugu record” laid by Obasanjo. Is this leadership, given that no Ministry or parastatal this year has an approved capital vote mid-July?

We were mostly wrong. But, we discovered we were remarkably right on one point – never appoint someone as Chief Executive Officer, CEO, for a giant, multinational organization, employing hundreds of thousands of people and impacting the lives of millions who happened to be the last man standing after an accident – for the simple reason that they generally don’t know how to manage simple, not to talk of complex organizations.

That is their kind of leadership. In June, without a budget for the year, our President was in South Africa waving flag in a stadium. That is our kind of leadership. From South Africa he went to Delta and will soon run off to the G-8 Summit and who knows it will be Akwa Ibom next. Still, there is no 2010 budget. And this is the nation the dreamers, including Jonathan, expect will be top 20 in 2020!!! He got a No1 shirt in Toronto fit for jesters.