₦airaland Forum

Nigerians breathed a sigh of relief when Jonathan conceded defeat and paved the way for Buhari to be sworn in as Nigeria’s president.

Jonathan was called several names, the economist recently described him as an ineffectual buffoon but Nigerians’ favourite was “clueless”.

Nigerians (rightfully) called Jonathan clueless but it doesn’t appear like Buhari is any better with his fixation on fighting corruption.

What is the point of having a corrupt free but severely impoverished country?

If Buhari spent less energy fighting corruption and more on harnessing Nigeria’s vast human resources potentials, he will surely get a second term in office.

China is the world’s second largest economy today and this is attributed largely to the vast amount of human resources at her disposal.

The United Kingdom with a population of around 65 million earns over £500b (five hundred billion Pounds) from various forms of taxation. (At the exchange rate of N400 to a Pound that is about Two hundred Trillion Naira.) Nigeria, with a population of over 150 million can only budget a paltry six Trillion Naira with half of that amount to be borrowed!


Last year 2015, Nigerians in Diaspora sent back home a total of $24 billion. That is almost 80% of Nigeria’s 2016 budget, which means Nigerians in Diaspora sent home more money than the Federal Government earned from oil. Nigerians in Diaspora are less than ten percent of the country’s population.

Nigeria is a country where oil accounts for a whooping seventy percent of government revenue, almost half of our foreign exchange earnings but only ten per cent of our GDP.

This anomaly is caused by government’s unhealthy over reliance on oil as a source of revenue. A situation that started during the wasteful 1970s.

The world’s insatiable appetite for crude oil ensured that demand and price remained high for decades until recently.

Successive governments (most of them headed by megalomaniac, corrupt despots in military uniform) saw the export of Oil and Gas as an easy way of earning money half of which ended up in private accounts. The real reason successive governments relied heavily upon oil is simple, corruption.

With oil as the main revenue earner, the concept of “National Cake” was firmly entrenched in the Nigerian psyche. Oil is freely given, it belongs to no one (Niger-Delta indigenes may disagree with that but that’s an argument for another day) so whoever gets his hands on oil money can do with it as he pleases.

Oil should have been just an extra source of revenue for Nigeria not the main source.

The concept of tax-payer’s money does not exist in Nigeria. People who say the discovery of oil in Nigeria was a curse and not a blessing to Nigerians know exactly what they are talking about. If tax constituted a lion share of government revenue in Nigeria and tax-payers monitored how their money is being spent corruption might not be so rampart in Nigeria.

The oil market crash has dealt a crushing blow on the Nigerian economy when it really shouldn’t have if past governments had tapped into Nigeria’s abundant resources, the most valuable being our human resources.

Nigeria’s tax-to-GDP ratio is only 7%. This is way too low for a country that prides itself as the largest economy in Africa. According to the Economist, every percentage point increase could add $5 billion extra cash for the country.

Every Nigerian government since independence, the present government inclusive, has been a liability to the Nigerian people, stalling progress in the country rather than promoting it.

If the present government wants to be taken seriously it should concentrate more on creating jobs with a view to earning more tax revenue and that’s just a start.

http://www.urnaija.com/is-buhari-turning-out-to-be-as-clueless-as-jonathan/

Make them pass budget first (in March) then wait for 6 months after that before you give your verdict.

Yes, the budget is wasteful.
Yes, PMB lacks economic insight.
Yes, the PMB administration is painfully slow.

However, you cannot make a u-turn now because the times are unfavorable. Suck it up and weather the bad times.

I'm pro-GEJ, but I want PMB to succeed. He and APC have made a fool of themselves thus far, but let us hope for the best in the coming months when they are given cash to run the economy.

-Lord

Among the blind the one eyed man is the king. Hmmm it seems the present administration are all blind o.

More clueless . Jonathan was not clueless . He had a vision but Nigeria is a complex country to govern . Rather Jonathan was a weak president and too good to be a president . PMB is the real clueless because he does not have the mental and academic abilities to pilot the affairs of this country . He does not have the ideal background . he came due to tribal and religious sentiments .

I did not read the text up there, but I know that Bubu is more Clueless than Jona. I

Thank you for your comment Lord Adam. It's not about making a U-turn. Never really supported Buhari. It's about pointing the government in the right direction.

Thanks again for your sensible comment. sensible as in you disagree with the write-up but without insulting the writer

LordAdam:
Make them pass budget first (in March) then wait for 6 months after that before you give your verdict.

Yes, the budget is wasteful.
Yes, PMB lacks economic insight.
Yes, the PMB administration is painfully slow.

However, you cannot make a u-turn now because the times are unfavorable. Suck it up and weather the bad times.

I'm pro-GEJ, but I want PMB to succeed. He and APC have made a fool of themselves thus far, but let us hope for the best in the coming months when they are given cash to run the economy.

-Lord

Thanks for your comment Iconaus. Your analysis on Jonathan was right on point! Please read our opinion on Jonathan, published in 2014: http://www.urnaija.com/jonathan-is-too-nice-to-be-nigerias-president/

As Nigerians we found ourselves in an unfortunate situation, having to choose between Jonathan and Buhari!

iconaus:
More clueless . Jonathan was not clueless . He had a vision but Nigeria is a complex country to govern . Rather Jonathan was a weak president and too good to be a president . PMB is the real clueless because he does not have the mental and academic abilities to pilot the affairs of this country . He does not have the ideal background . he came due to tribal and religious sentiments .

Jonathan was never clueless... buhari is the real definition of clueless leader.

Jonathan was never clueless... buhari is the real definition of a clueless leader.

urnaijadotcom:
Thank you for your comment Lord Adam. It's not about making a U-turn. Never really supported Buhari. It's about pointing the government in the right direction.

Thanks again for your sensible comment. sensible as in you disagree with the write-up but without insulting the writer

I applaud the fact that a lot of neutral people and even those who voted APC in the last elections are calling the PMB administration to check. It is necessary.

The fact is that the precedence of calling a president clueless, ineffectual baboon, dullard, even when rightly deserved early on in the presidency is not wholly fair. As a pro-GEJ supporter, the election times were rough because there were a lot of unsubstantiated allegations against the GEJ administration (now turning to be false) that were peddled because things appeared bad.

Nigerians now know APC is a fraud, that PMB was a mistake. Thank heavens we have discovered it early enough. The question now is should we let things remain this way until 2019? That is a long time to wait. Our criticisms should be constructive, not one-sided, and be vocal enough to force the change we seek.

I have called PMB a senile dullard before, so I am not trying to be an hypocrite. I did it then to prove to people that all is not what it seems. PMB is no messiah and APC is not a party of saints. Now, I have been proven right. The next thing is how to do our best to make sure things do not fall out of hand too much.

Everyone is complaining about the economy and calling PMB clueless, I am yet to see a good article that critiqued the budget in a bid to right the wrongs in it. It appears we are experts in identifying problems and having an idea of what the solution is, but have zero capacity in remedying the problems.

If we don't stop this attitude, we would wail till 2019. Vote another mistake and start wailing after 6 months. Who gains and who loses? The politicians can switch parties at will and gain, the masses lose completely.

PMB is a failure. Fine, but his failure affects 180m Nigerians. The stakes are too high to let him fail for another 3 years.

-Lord

Very insightful. Just made a comment on your contribution about Transparency International "delisting" Nigeria from the list of corrupt countries. Its bad enough that people will come up with that kind of lie its unthinkable that they they hoped to get away with it.

LordAdam:
I applaud the fact that a lot of neutral people and even those who voted APC in the last elections are calling the PMB administration to check. It is necessary.

The fact is that the precedence of calling a president clueless, ineffectual baboon, dullard, even when rightly deserved early on in the presidency is not wholly fair. As a pro-GEJ supporter, the election times were rough because there were a lot of unsubstantiated allegations against the GEJ administration (now turning to be false) that were peddled because things appeared bad.

Nigerians now know APC is a fraud, that PMB was a mistake. Thank heavens we have discovered it early enough. The question now is should we let things remain this way until 2019? That is a long time to wait. Our criticisms should be constructive, not one-sided, and be vocal enough to force the change we seek.

I have called PMB a senile dullard before, so I am not trying to be an hypocrite. I did it then to prove to people that all is not what it seems. PMB is no messiah and APC is not a party of saints. Now, I have been proven right. The next thing is how to do our best to make sure things do not fall out of hand too much.

Everyone is complaining about the economy and calling PMB clueless, I am yet to see a good article that critiqued the budget in a bid to right the wrongs in it. It appears we are experts in identifying problems and having an idea of what the solution is, but have zero capacity in remedying the problems.

If we don't stop this attitude, we would wail till 2019. Vote another mistake and start wailing after 6 months. Who gains and who loses? The politicians can switch parties at will and gain, the masses lose completely.

PMB is a failure. Fine, but his failure affects 180m Nigerians. The stakes are too high to let him fail for another 3 years.

-Lord

He is clueless.