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If there is any
debate that Nigerians should be glad to have, it’s about the economy.
With the crippling poverty and scarcity that average Nigerians daily
face, it is in fact a wonder that this issue is not being examined more
widely.

The economy was
certainly a subject of the campaign of former vice president, Atiku
Abubakar, before he decided to make zoning the premise of his
candidacy. But while he maintained his focus on the economy, informed
Nigerians had cause to pay attention – and apparently, so did the
Nigerian government, as its minister for finance, Olusegun Aganga,
engaged in a sustained war of words with the Atiku team.

Mr. Abubakar
criticised this government’s handling of the economy, questioning the
non-implementation of budgets, the disappearance of excess crude
account monies (even at a time when oil prices were far above the
benchmark), the foreign reserves being depleted so badly that our
status with rating agencies began to drop and the wisdom government
that premised its calculations on making debt a benchmark.

Faced with a
minister of finance with impressive educational and professional
experience as Mr. Aganga these were not easy questions for many
Nigerians to ask. But Mr. Abubakar effectively made it clear that as
far as he could tell there was no viable strategy on the economy being
implemented.

While it is
possible to chalk up all of that hot air to the usual back-and-forth of
politicians focused only on winning elections, Mr. Abubakar’s campaign
for his party’s presidential nomination is over, he lost, but the same
questions are still being asked by the likes of Adamu Ciroma, himself a
former Minister of Finance and Chukwuma Soludo erstwhile governor of
the Central Bank.

In an open letter
to Mr. Aganga challenging the minister to a debate on the economy –
Soludo raised a long line of issues. He criticized the government for
its inability to evolve a “sensible debt strategy” flaying the
administration’s debt-to-DGP ratio as well as the constant debt
accumulation. Pointing out what he referred to as “ignorance” in the
ministry’s aping of the models of countries like the United States, the
United Kingdom and others in Europe while Nigeria is not in a
recession, he recalled that Mr. Aganga assumed office with an oil price
benchmark of about $75 per barrel and external reserves of about
$42billion, but has so far lost about $10billion in foreign reserves at
a time of unprecedented export boom, even with oil prices now over $90
per barrel.

Mr. Soludo also
questioned the Eurobond issued by Nigeria, noting that the joy over
oversubscription is misplaced considering the attractive returns
foreigners were offered, while referring to a London Financial Times
report on Nigeria in January that questioned the economic management
skill of this administration.

Unfortunately, the
minister for finance had no response beyond pointing to the amount of
money lost by investors in the capital market while Mr. Soludo was in
office and the millions now being used to bail banks out under the
Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria as well as accusing Mr. Soludo
of misrepresentation.

Unfortunately,
while we can take a safe bet that none of Mr. Soludo’s latest
statements are altruistic (especially considering the rot his successor
met, as well as the many questions he himself left unanswered in his
time), the minister’s response will not suffice. The questions asked
demand satisfactory answers.

For what it is
worth, Messrs Abubakar, Soludo and others have found an easy target in
the Jonathan administration’s economic competence. Whatever the
intentions of the accusers, when ordinary Nigerians take a look at the
handling of the nation’s debt profile, reserves, those telling ratings,
the free fall with the banks and the stock exchange and above all, that
most telling indicator: the fact that, over the past year, nothing has
really changed in the conditions of living, then it becomes apparent
that someone somewhere has failed. Why, and what exactly is going on?

Aggrieved
opposition politicians might not deserve an answer to those questions,
but the generality of the Nigerian public does. And we are still
waiting.