NIGERIA IN A SICK-BAY

We now confronted with the fact that there is definitely a technocratic deficit in the president's new crew. Needing to make up for the time we lost while the president kept everyone waiting, we have now discovered that the people he laboured to choose bring little or nothing to the table in terms of their capacity to address expeditiously the grave issues currently confronting the country.



So what do we have now? Nigeria is a sick patient currently lying comatose in a hospital emergency ward. Her condition is critical. A surgical operation is urgently required. However, there is ni doctor on duty. The night-nurse only works at the hospital in her spare time. In daytime, she is the proprietress of a "mama put". The other nurses are also part-time workers. They are a collection of cooks, tailors and groundnut sellers.


This raises grave concerns about the fate of the patient. What is going to happen to Nigeria? If we are not careful, this patient might not make it.


When President Buhari finally chose his ministers, he chose by his own account "noice-makers". There turned out to be economic illiterates. Instead of putting together a coherent economic policy that will stop the free-fall of the naira and encourage monetary inflows to supplement the drastic cuts in our foreign exchange income, the government's answer has been to do nothing but blame the past administration for everything. Its blue print, of it has any at all, has been to ignore the economy and concentrate instead on anti-corruption propaganda while the President junkets around the world




Femi Aribisala