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.