“If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.” That is not original to me. The original author was Mark Anthony in Shakespeare’s (1564-1616) play Julius Ceasar. But the great(est) British writer/poet had provided the most appropriate opening statement in response to the announcement by the Vice President (The VP), Prof Yemi Osinbajo. What we have in Nigeria right now is not a case of the blind leading the blind. If it was so, that situation can be easily corrected.

In the first part of this series, we explained how ignorance, poverty of leadership, incompetence and the wrong mindsets of our leaders combined to push us into the economic quagmire in which we find ourselves now.

THIS report went on to list the failed targets of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan, ERGP, as follows: ‘‘Stable macroeconomic environment; Agricultural transformation and food security; Sufficiency in energy (power and petroleum products; Improved transportation infrastructure; and Industrialisation focusing SMEs.

The search for the best people to assume important positions remains the first task of any national leader because on them lie the success or failure of the leader. Nobody can ever accuse President Mohammadu Buhari of selecting the most outstanding people for assignments. All one needs to remember is that the President scrapped the Board of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, in favour of the Interim Management Committee, IMC, which is now entertaining the world to a grand display of washing dirty underwears in public. The NDDC crowd represents the rest of the mistakes Buhari has made – and from which he has not learnt.

My courses on American government during my undergraduate years had taught me that we must pay attention to the quality of the people appointed to the highest offices of government. I learnt another lesson when being trained in computer programming at Polaroid Corporation in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. It said Garbage-In-Garbage-Out, GIGO.