The Nigerian most dreaded might not even be the leader of Boko Haram. He and his colleagues might soon disappear like the Maitasene – the dreaded Islamic group of the I980s. Religious uprisings never last in Nigeria and have invariably been regional in scope. The worst threat to our present and future might well be Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala – the Federal Minister of Finance who has embarked on raising the nation’s debt ceiling.

“In modern Japan the good of the nation [is] more important than the good of the class. A poor talented and diligent boy had a chance to rise as high as he could…modern Japan was perhaps the world’s most efficient distillation system, in which remarkably little was wasted..a vital part of it was the education system: it supplied the nation with the right number of workers, the right number of engineers, and the right number of managers for every need of a modern society, but, also important, it brought to the poorest homes the sense that there were better possibilities for the children “, David Halberstam, in THE RECKONING, p 277.

“We have mentioned the 3.5 million jobs we aim to create in agriculture and millions(?) more in housing, and construction sectors, solid minerals sector, aviation and the creative industry”. President Goodluck Jonathan, 2013 Budget Speech, delivered to the National Assembly.

Last week, one of the officials of the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, the same agency which under-estimated the flood disaster which had paralysed the nation, was reported to have said that there would be very little food crisis next year contrary to what people were predicting.

“Why is it that the principles of economics which work anywhere else in the world don’t work in Nigeria”, asked President Ibrahim Babangida, IBB, out of exasperation in the 1990s. In my letter to the Guardian Editor, my reply to IBB, was simple. The principles of economics presumed that the people adopting them are reasonable and honest.

What Ibrahim Okai said in the 1980s was true before then and still true today – especially in Nigeria. Banks according to economic principle, are the only entities established to create wealth. But, they seldom do it for the poor in most countries. In Nigeria, never. In fact, here, they prefer to lose money on rich dead-beats than to make money on small struggling business people.

“Flooding is yet to be over. A type of flood, called black flood, which is caused by the arrival of flood waters from upstream of the River Niger is likely to hit communities close to the river banks between October and early November.” Minister of Water Resources, Sarah Ochekpe.

“400,000 farms; 36,000 houses in Jigawa….in Kaduna..heavy rainfall swept away more than 300 homes..”. PUNCH, September 18, 2012.

For more than 20 years, climatologists and futurologists have warned, an obviously deaf, world, especially the leaders of the advanced economies –USA, China, Japan, all of Europe – that a major climate change was inevitable and the conse ences will be catastrophic for the entire planet.

“He gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind , and do more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together”. Jonathan Swift, I667-I745, in Gulliver’s Travels.

To this, Napoleon Bonaparte, I769-I82, added, “An army marches on its stomach”. Either as civilians or as uniformed men and women, Nigerians are heading for the worst food crisis in over hundred years. Few people alive in this country today have never experienced such deprivation as is now becoming increasingly imminent; not only in Nigeria, but globally as well.