by 
This year, 2020, will be
a very crucial one to watch as the economic advisory team deepen work on
transforming Nigeria’s huge needs for money infrastructure, schools, hospitals
and lay the foundation for welfare to beleaguered Nigerians.
To succeed, it will be necessary for President
Buhari to lead from the front in what Nigerians hope will be a new deal for the
Nation. Central to the success of all of this is peace and stability as this is
the basic building block in successful leadership. I look forward, therefore,
to respect for the rule of law, judicial independence and robust legislative
action by the National Assembly. We need to manage our political and economic
affairs more carefully. The policy of massive borrowing by the Federal
Government must translate to the benefit of Nigeria. How we want to manage our
federal structure will be crucial. There are so many models of federalism and
it remains to be seen whether the present model of a strong centre had worked
or restructuring to the 1963 model a better option. Federating units are
successful when the model allows them space to operate at their unit level and
this has influenced the call by many to adopt the 1963 constitution as our
model of federalism. I agree entirely but a middle approach is also to consider
what I call cooperative federalism which is a half-way model between unitary
federalism and the 1963 model. Ultimately, the success of a nation depends on
the quality of politics and our politicians, as no matter the quality of these
processes, it is the maturity of our politicians that ultimately count. I hope
therefore that 2020 will usher in a period of mature politics; otherwise, we
are unlikely to succeed.
Vital to all this will be the role of the
media, civil society institutions, and Labour. These institutions have a strong
role to play in political pluralism moderation, fairness, tolerance and good
behaviour. I will keenly lookout for a much better space allowed by government
to social media to operate without fear or favour and in a climate of free
space. Nigeria can be like the late great Elijah Cummins would say: ‘we
can be better than this.’ Nigeria has all it takes to be a great country but
this will require that the government develops a stronger strategy to fight
corruption. I give some marks to the government on this but more can get done.
Our judicial process is so antiquated that massive overhaul will be required to
regain public confidence. Investments will not come into Nigeria from foreign
or domestic business unless the courts are seen to work. Speed of justice is
key to development; so the Chief Justice of Nigeria must undertake a surgery of
judicial procedures. Cost of governance has been a long-standing issue. The
Federal Government must deal with this in 2020 in a big way by implementing the
Orosanye report and limiting the size of government to release the money to the
capital and welfare needs of Nigerians. Ultimately, the government is about
people, so in 2020 we need to see the government provide employment. My hopes
for 2020 is simple— we want a government that cares about people, builds up
capacity by attracting investments, builds up the capacity of small businesses
so that in December of 2020, we can all look back and say ‘what a great year!’
Source: Vanguard
