We are looking asking for an eighteen-month moratorium before we can start paying , so that we will be able to strategise…To develop the IGR is not overnight, it is a long term programme that one has to plan for…and we cannot say we are going to cut salaries and wages.” Governor Yari, Chairman of Nigeria Governors Forum, April 28, 2016, in Abuja.

Readers would permit me if the APC spokesman is not identified. He is a long term associate and one of those who have helped me as a columnist in the early years. Like Shakespeare, 1564-1616, “I hate ingratitude more in a man than lying, vainness, babbling drunkenness or any taints of vice” (VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS p 103). But, that far I will go and no further.

In the three tears left to this administration, we have given ourselves the target of 10,000MW distributable power. In 2016 alone, we intend to add 2,000MW to the national grid.”

NOTE: This article was written on March 8, 2016, two weeks after it was announced that President Buhari had agreed to organize an Economic Summit. Even then, it was clear to some economists that this government was not really interested in the summit. The summit failed to take off on Thursday, March 10, 2016 as scheduled and no new take-off date had been established. Obviously, there is no commitment; only an attempt to silence critics of government.

Most of our Fellow Countrymen (“How many fools make up Fellow Countrymen”, asked Thomas Carlyle, 1795-1881, in despair) are emotional and unrealistic. Less than one tenth of one per cent understands the basic principles of economics. Most of the leaders, drawn from the same pool of people, are not different. Even those among the leaders who understand the principles of economics lack the moral courage to tell the truth when issues pertaining to economics become contentious. They choose to play to gallery by telling the “masses” what they prefer to be told instead of telling the truth which might be unpopular.