“…every Nigerian is now sober. The governors have realized now that this can happen and that oil prices can plummet from $100 to $28 within a short period of time, and that we can be so exposed that we can’t even pay salaries…”So there is a sobriety that has come in. So, we are working with the states and we are not bailing them out. We have said to them that we have a fiscal restructuring plan…”Whatever we are doing will be conditional. Mrs Adeosun, Federal Minister of Finance, May 5, 2016.

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.