Dr Olubunmi Balogun

Dr Olubunmi Muhammed Balogun, Secretary of Ekiti All Progressives Congress (APC) Elders Initiative Forum, has advocated serious backward integration and reduction in the cost of governance as solutions to the current economic problems that Nigeria faces.

In his words: “This is what you get when you live largely by consuming the products of other nations’ industries – their garments, foods, machinery, shoes, motor cars, motor vehicles, aircraft, telephones, furniture, cosmetics, schools, laboratory equipment, electoral materials, broadcasting equipment, medical equipment, drugs, building materials, refineries, ammunition and security accessories, including metal detectors etc. Guess what we don’t import to live – air.

He cautioned, though that the bad economic situation and our lopsided consumerism are not the making of the Muhammadu Buhari government.

He said what we currently experience has its ancestry in the fact that we simply believed that oil money would be there forever and ever for us to spend and our elites foisted corruptocracy on us, enriching themselves beyond imagination. “Obviously, this government and most people didn’t expect things to be this bad.”

He wanted Nigerians to realise that we are now in a state worse than a war situation. “Therefore, we should immediately carry out an emergency surgery in the bloated size and cost of bureaucracy and governance. Let the civil societies and the people arise to force a unicameral legislature at the centre with a maximum of 100 representatives. Moreover, the Senate should be reduced to one or two seats per state and National Assembly to 240. This will allow each state to employ the number of staff it can cater for. There should also be merger of ministries to reduce the present size of cabinet by 50%, doing away with all special advisers and assistants for legislators and ministers and reducing the number of such advisers for the presidency by 50%. The ministers have PS and Directors of various grades to advise them.

He added: “Sell presidential fleet of aircraft and reduce the number of official cars. Target research institutes and universities on R&D (Research and Development) to produce needed raw materials and machinery. Let crude oil and import dependency die so that we can use our brains and hands to produce and consume what we need. Yes, it will be tough; but that’s an approach to self reliance. I should admit that I am not an economist; but with what all these CBN Governor and Finance minister are doing to us, we need more common sense than theories.”