For one reason alone, Nigerians should pardon the Minister of Finance, Dr Olusegun Aganga for his statement: "Let me correct this again... the economy is too technical for some people to understand" (ThisDay, November 25, 2010). The minister spent most of his life abroad mainly in the UK where he was shielded from the reality at home.
Had the Minister made efforts to understand the country and its people since his returned, he would have understood and appreciated that Nigerians are not people to be shut up or intimidated from discussing matters that concern them.
The truth is that you do not need to be an economist to notice the growing line of unemployed graduates, the rocketing prices of basic food stuff, the deteriorating environment for business and the collapse of our infrastructure.
The Jonathan's highly technical minister of finance should tell Nigerians why only 30 percent of the capital vote for the 2010 budget has been released to Ministries while the recurrent expenditures has already gone beyond 100 percent because additional unbudgeted N200 billion Naira was released for the striking staff of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).
Many non- economists, including secondary school students, know that capital expenditures, rather than recurrent expenditures drive economic and infrastructure developments. In fact, in what would perhaps be a subtle rebuke of the Minister's peculiar brand of economics, the Vanguard of November 25, 2010 reported that the IMF urged the Nigerian government to "reallocate resources away from recurrent expenditure to capital expenditure to support economic growth."
Who can deny that our foreign reserve and excess crude accounts have not gone down? Who can deny that budgets are not being effectively implemented? Who can deny that Nigeria has gone back to the old habits of foreign borrowing and that the President submitted repeated requests to the National Assembly to incur more debts on Nigeria?
Sick Economy And Jonathan's Insufficient Alibi (http://www.saharareporters.com/article/sick-economy-and-jonathan%E2%80%99s-insufficient-alibi)