“For this reason, I seek the concurrence of the National Assembly for external borrowing of not more than $1 billion..” President Jonathan in the letter to the Senate President, David Mark on July 15, 2014.

I cannot recollect which one of my classmates wrote that report, when after a Scouts’ Adventure we returned to school at Igbobi College, Yaba and were asked to recount our experience. Mostly, we got totally lost in the forest and it was the benevolent appearance of a hunter which got us out.

Nigeria lags behind all the countries – South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, to mention a few – which were either at the same level of development or were even behind us in 1960 mostly because we never learn from our mistakes. Every twenty or so years, we are faced with a major shift in economic policies based on new global realities or technology and we end up messing up the transition – at our own peril

Last year, on my SUNDAY VANGUARD page, I had published an article titled AVIATION MINISTER: TIME TO GO. Prior to that, I had also carpeted the former minister for incompetence – among other failures. The first article received a rejoinder from her Senior Personal Assistant, Mr Joel Obi. As usual, Joel Obi, disregarded the point of the article and went on to do what spokespersons for government officials do best – present half truths and outright falsehood as facts. I allowed Obi to expose himself and the Minister on my page because there was no doubt in my mind that truth will prevail. I knew that Ms Oduah would never last the distance as minister and that she would be out of office soon.

Part two of this series touched on the critical role of the price of crude oil in the success, or otherwise, of the NISSAN Assembly plant – as well as others about to start up again. It is vital to point out that the price of crude might not be the only variable which can have a significant impact on the survival of the assembly plants.