SAM OHUABUNWA: JONATHAN HAS DONE WELL ON THE ECONOMY

There can never be a perfect Leader. Most leaders do well in certain respects and fail in other respects. Also we may never all agree even on one area the leader has done well or has not done well. It all depends on the criteria for assessment. 

As example, for some people, a political leader has not done well except he has given them an appointment, a contract or put money in their individual pockets. He can kill himself, but as far as they have received no personal benefit he is no good. 

For some others, a political leader can only do well if he is from their ethnic enclave or he is from their Political Party. Therefore, he can commit ‘harakiri’, they will ignore and still commend him because of their narrow and myopic prism of assessment. 

Of course such assessment can be very biased and injurious. Nevertheless it is their own criterion for assessment.  And yet for the enlightened others, they use specific and objective criteria to assess leadership performance. 

There may be some colorations and nuances, but that’s because they are human. And that’s why I am not really surprised by the recent comments on the economy raised by Prof Chukwuma Soludo and a couple of other distinguished Nigerians.

On this score, I endorse Oby Ezekwesili’s call for a debate. That to me is the civilized way to conduct a discourse or argument with the objective of presenting the facts, the figures and insights, demolishing falsehood or establishing the truth. 

I do not subscribe to name calling or demonizing of Professionals or fellow Nigerians just because our views do not agree. Not all Nigerians are gullible. Many have brains that work, processing all the information they receive, agreeing, disagreeing and throwing the rest into the garbage.  

In my many years of Economic advocacy as a leader in the Manufacturer’s Association of Nigeria (MAN), the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) and the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), I have been  schooled by the Professors, the practitioners and economic agents on what shows good Economic Management and Bad Economic Management from the Private Sector Perspective. 

It is from this standpoint that I want to justify my conviction that when it comes to the Economy Jonathan has done well, better than many.