Private sector experts to the rescue as government flounders with the economy

I get the feeling Nigerians have had enough and are now feeling deaf from the seeming never-ending replay of the blame game hit song, `Blame it on Jonathan,’ by the current administration.
Through the Sallah celebrations and the short work week that followed, the blame hit song got a boost as it reached a notch higher after President Muhammadu Buhari and other state officials tried to absolve themselves and the government of any responsibility after the economy’s recession continued. When President Buhari took off to Daura penultimate Friday, I assumed it was to get away from the hassle of governance and have a quiet celebration as he spent time with his family. I was wrong.
As you already know, the country is in a recession and it is biting hard. To put it simply, people are hungry. So much that food items including steaming pots of soup simmering on cooking stoves have been reported stolen. More employers are cutting jobs as they downsize to remain competitive and stay afloat, inflation has risen to a record 17.6 percent, climbing for the 10th straight month.
There is hunger and anger. So one can relate to why the blame game is no longer effective. On an empty stomach and bank accounts in the red, the blame lyrics no longer appeal to anyone.
Since coming into office in May last year, President Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) have continued to accuse previous administrations, especially the last one, of running the country down and that the new ruling APC is the messiah that will bring back Nigeria’s glory days. Unfortunately, 16 months into the tenure of the new administration, the situation has become so dire it’s reached alarming proportions. And all that the people are still hearing is `it wasn’t me’.
The president during his Sallah message said the recession was as a result of cumulative effects of worldwide economic downturn and failure of past governments to plan and save for difficult times. While in Daura, the president again told journalists that the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) left Nigeria with nothing after 16 years.

“I want Nigerians to realise that what this government inherited after 16 years of the PDP government was no savings, no infrastructure, no power, no rail, no road and no security,” he said.
Mr. President, with all due respect can you please stop? Can we clear the space of blames and start to talk about plans and solutions? As it stands the voice of the former is still louder than the latter. If the people were happy with their lot under the previous government, that administration would still be in power. The people didn’t elect the new government to come regale, and even chastise them about how bad things are or were. The new administration was voted because it promised to proffer solutions to improve their lot and because the people believe the current crop of leader will do better.
One of the resource experts who attended the emergency retreat on the economic recession at the Presidential Villa last week Thursday rightly said Nigerians are really tired of hearing what or who caused the recession. The people want to hear the way forward and how the new government is fixing things. Where do we go from here and how soon before things start to change for the better?

Information Minister Lai Mohammed also rose in defense of the government, fending off a jab from the PDP accusing the government of causing the recession and asking the president to resign. According to Mr. Mohammed, the government keeps trying to forget the past, but the past, implying the PDP, keeps rearing its head.

For what it’s worth, the president is in charge now and all eyes are on him to deliver. Besides, all mouths will also be `sharpened’ towards you Mr. President. So why not focus and respond to the opposition with performance and results opposition.
On to other matters, all is not lost on the public-private relations as President Buhari last week ate humble pie and called out the private sector for help as he declared that government will be leveraging on Public Private Partnerships to augment scarce resources.
Since the inception of the current administration, we have witnessed less participation of the private sector in government business.

Obviously due to change in some policies.

At different times, the president and his media handlers, especially from the office of the Vice President, have risen in defense of why government decided to exclude the private sector from its economic management team.
The argument does not seem plausible, at least not to me. In fact, the president was quoted as saying during an interview that his government
was averse to private sector inclusion.
“What do they mean by team? The vice president heads our Economic Management Team. You have the finance minister, the budget and planning minister; the minister of trade, industry and investment; the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, the national economic adviser and others and yet some people still ask for a team,” he retorted when asked about his economic management team.
“We will listen to everybody but we are averse to economic teams whose private sector members frequently steer government policy to suit their own narrow interests rather than the overall national interest,” he added.
In explaining the exclusion of the private sector from the EMT, the administration told Nigerians that managing the economy was strictly government business or responsibility as the case maybe. According to Laolu Akande, the spokesperson in the office of the Vice President, there was no sense in bringing the private sector in to take a decision that directly involves them. Can you beat that?
“We have to understand that the attitude of this presidency is to consider the management of the economy as a government responsibility.
It is not something that this government believes should be done by bringing in some of the private interests into the economic team to take a decision that they will be directly involved with.
“So our stand is that the management of the economy is a government responsibility,” Akande quoted President Buhari to have said during an interview.
He explained that the EMT would however, be meeting with the private sector from time to time. A step further, I remember when they invited experts to rub minds with the EMT and a statement was put out to announce or more like celebrate that it met with economic experts.
I have tried to understand the logic behind their explanations and like a lot of other things about this government, it fails to sink in.
Ours is a capitalist economy not socialism. To think that economic management in a capital economy was solely government’s responsibility is foolhardy.
Shouldn’t there be experts and technocrats on the team? Isn’t it normal? After all the private sector is the engine room of the economy. I really don’t want to rant about this, certainly not today.
On the lighter side of things, as the cabinet retreat kicked off, the master of ceremony initially led cabinet members in prayers. Shortly after the president walked in to the hall and cabinet members sang the National Anthem. Then MC had everyone repeat the national prayer, the second stanza, of the anthem after him.
And like school pupils, they (including me) all chanted the lines after him to the amusement of journalists, most of who stood by exchanging glances that implied `this is very unusual’.
It reminded me of the first time this same cabinet (except one) all sat in the same hall during their first retreat to receive lectures. They had that `Johnny just come’ look about them. It was like the first day of school. And 10 months down the line, they were in the same hall again. Only this time, it’s back to the drawing board as private sector experts were brought in to help fix government economic problems.