Nigeria’s Economic Management Team is chaired by President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and it includes the Vice President Mohammed Namadi Sambo who serves as the Vice Chairman, other members are the Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Minister of National Planning, Minister of Trade and Investment, Minister of Power, Minister of Petroleum Resources, Minister of Agriculture, Minister of Works, Minister of Education, Minister of Health, Minister of State, Finance, Minister of State, Health, Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, Chief Economic Adviser, Special Adviser, Monitoring and Evaluation, Director General, Budget, Director General, Debt Management Office, Director General, Bureau for Public Procurement, Director General, Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission, Director General, Bureau of Public Enterprises, Honourary Adviser on Agriculture and Governor of Adamawa State, Honourary Adviser on Finance and Governor of Anambra State, Honourary Adviser on Economy and President, Nigerian Economic Society, Mr. Atedo Peterside, Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, Director General, Security & Exchange Commission, President – Manufacturing Association of Nigeria and Africa’s richest man - Aliko Dangote, controversial banker - Mr. Aigboje Aig Imoukhuede and oil baron - Femi Otedola.
PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan inaugurated the National Economic Management Team, NEMT, with a charge to fast track the economic development of the nation. At the inauguration ceremony, the President said “as a government we have made substantial gains in our objective of accelerating the pace of economic development in our country over a short period of time; I believe that with the economic management team in place, and with the commitment of its members, we will be in a vantage position to achieve a lot more”.
Nigeria’s Economic Management Team is chaired by President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and it includes the Vice President Mohammed Namadi Sambo who serves as the Vice Chairman, other members are the Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Minister of National Planning, Minister of Trade and Investment, Minister of Power, Minister of Petroleum Resources, Minister of Agriculture, Minister of Works, Minister of Education, Minister of Health, Minister of State, Finance, Minister of State, Health, Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, Chief Economic Adviser, Special Adviser, Monitoring and Evaluation, Director General, Budget, Director General, Debt Management Office, Director General, Bureau for Public Procurement, Director General, Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission, Director General, Bureau of Public Enterprises, Honourary Adviser on Agriculture and Governor of Adamawa State, Honourary Adviser on Finance and Governor of Anambra State, Honourary Adviser on Economy and President, Nigerian Economic Society, Mr. Atedo Peterside, Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, Director General, Security & Exchange Commission, President – Manufacturing Association of Nigeria and Africa’s richest man - Aliko Dangote, controversial banker - Mr. Aigboje Aig Imoukhuede and oil baron - Femi Otedola.
PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan inaugurated the National Economic Management Team, NEMT, with a charge to fast track the economic development of the nation. At the inauguration ceremony, the President said “as a government we have made substantial gains in our objective of accelerating the pace of economic development in our country over a short period of time; I believe that with the economic management team in place, and with the commitment of its members, we will be in a vantage position to achieve a lot more”.
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He further charged members of the team to “combine their individual strengths, to generate ideas and initiatives in line with our goal of transforming every sector of Nigerian life and society, particularly the economy”.
Is it not laughable that an economic management team will consist of oligarchs like Aliko Dangote, vulture capitalists like Femi Otedola, and profiteers like Aig Imoukhuede? What sort of advice will they give the President? Perhaps, the people can expect to hear stories of import waivers, petroleum subsidy fraud, and the stripping of our national assets. I am particularly dismayed at the way they all came out to dismiss citizens’ concern as it relates to the proposed N5000 banknote and the coinage of N100, N50, N20, N10, and N5 banknotes. Regrettably, President Goodluck Jonathan has allowed buccaneers and vulture capitalists to hijack his administration and derail his agenda.
The National Economic Management Team in Nigeria is similar to the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) in the United States. It is an agency within the Executive Office of the President and it advises the President of the United States on economic policy. It is a misnomer in Nigeria that a similar advisory body is called a management team and peopled by questionable characters.
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It is curious that no member of academia is part of the so called National Economic Management Team. Take the case of the United States where past and present members of the Council of Economic Advisers are renowned economists and policy wonks. The current Chairman of the CEA is Alan Krueger and a former professor at Princeton.
Unlike its Nigerian counterpart, The American council of Economic Advisers was established by the United States Employment Act of 1946 to provide US Presidents with purposeful fiscal analysis and advice on the growth and execution of a wide range of internal and global economic policy issues. Some of its influential past chairs are: Alan Greenspan and Arthur F. Burns. While influential past members are: James Tobin and Nobel Economist, Paul Krugman.
It is clear from the foregoing that its Nigerian version cannot achieve even a miniscule of the goal that has been set for it. This is not as a result of a dearth of qualified personnel in Nigeria but because time and again Nigeria’s elected officials has shirked their responsibility to the Nigerian people and have a penchant for constituting irrelevant committees and loading such with incompetent individuals. Take the case of the Federal Capital Territory, dirty, chaotic, and leaderless.
The biggest problem in my political party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party lies in its inability to manage the political success that comes out of its ability to cobble together a winning coalition. Those of us on the left to center of the party will continue to call out the leadership to this glaring inadequacy. The proposed currency restructuring agenda is dead on arrival and posterity will not be kind to those who are bent on mortgaging the future of the next generation of Nigerians.
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