Michael Okpara University - Nto

Te; a World Bank Consultant and the ctor, Agribusiness Incubation Centre, Umuahia, he spoke on how the Centre ssues. Excerpts:

Can any of our leaders do trial and error in their choice of medical doctors that manage their personal health? Let the right people be employed to do the job.

is will mark the turning point. is will mark the formulation of the right and unbiased policies. is will also rekindle the con dence of citizens and investors. If the President can look for the best medical doctors anywhere in the world, when he is sick, it is also of paramount importance for him to look for the best economists now that the nation is economically sick.

Despite claims by the FG that it is on top of the security challenges, the hydra-headed problem has persisted. Now that the National Assembly is deliberating the option of establishing state police, do you think this approach may be the solution?

e Federal Government may claim to be on the top of the challenge! Yes! they may be. But the citizens will only see it when kidnapping, banditry, terrorism are over; we can only accept the claim when traders and tourists can travel round the country without fear; when investors will troop into Nigeria as it were in the 70s and 80s; when farmers in Northern Nigeria will leave the IDP camps and go back to their farms. I feel sad to see the way our military men and police are being ambushed and killed on a daily basis. e challenge of insecurity is still there unabated. I do not see state police as the solution to the problem. What are the equipment the state governors will provide for the state police that the federal cannot provide for the current police? Most of these crimes are committed across state boundaries. State police can only handle minor crimes within the state. State police will never solve the problems of Boko Haram in the North East, banditry and kidnapping in the North West; or unknown gunmen in the South East or herdsmen problem in the

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North central and South West. As far as I know, state police will only arm the governors to hunt down their perceived enemies. ere is nothing that they can do di erently.

What is your assessment of the APC administration at the centre under the leadership of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu?

I take exception to the use of APC in your question. For me, he is now President Tinubu for Nigerians. He takes the blame and credit for every bad or good decisions he takes. However, if you compare the APC and PDP governments that le in the 2015, the response will be a different thing. Be that as it may, every government has its areas of strength and that of weakness. Every government has areas it succeeded and areas that it failed. Every assessment must have a component of bias. An APC person will tell you that the Tinubu government has solved all Nigerian problems while the opponent will have di erent answers. Same also the in uence of religion and ethnicity on response to your question. But my assessment will be based on availability of food on the table of everyone; price of the food; exchange rate as against what it was last year; the number of hours a household enjoys power in his home per day; ease of doing business and ease of getting a job a er graduation. For me, these issues raised and others will help one to properly assess the performance of a government. However, the government of Tinubu still has about three years to put all the things that will raise the standard of living in the proper perspective. Let the government bring in the right people who understand the problems of Nigerians and address them.

e economy in the South-east appears to be under serious threat with the continuous sitat-home on Mondays. Do you think that if Nnamdi Kanu is released from detention, the tension will be doused in the zone?

ere is no economy that is solely associated with the Igbos. What a ects a tribe automatically will have adverse e ects on the Nigerian economy. Sit-at-home will a ect food items’ movement from North to South East since trucks and lorries cannot move on Mondays. It will also a ect banking transactions, and so many commercial activities across the other zones will be a ected. A trader in Aba cannot pay his associate in Sokoto on sitat-home day. Also, if young people in the South East are not well tutored because of sit-at-home, the person may end up working in the North or West; so, the issue of sit-at- home should not be viewed as that of Igbo economy but Nigerian problem. However, so many personalities have called for the release of Mazi Kanu, I join my voice to others to appeal to President Tinubu to release Mazi Kanu.

What is your take on the students’ loan bill that has recently been accented to by the President?

ere are so many worries on this bill that seem to provide loans to students of tertiary institutions. First, does the government have the statistics or population of students who qualify for this; secondly will they cope in providing the required fund? Who will accept to guarantee the loan when it is clear that there is no available job a er graduation that will enable the student bene ciary to pay back within the stipulated period? In developed countries where students' loans exist, the unemployment rate is very negligible. In our case, the implication is that the guarantor may end up being the person to repay. e government should rather give bursary awards to brilliant students recommended by various institutions. Besides, those recommended will also be subjected to general examination or aptitude test.

Condemnation has been trailing the open removal of subsidy and bringing it back secretly; what is your view on this and the impending implications?

Even the government of advanced countries allows subsidies to encourage production at lower cost. ey even go as far as allowing tax holidays for startups. How can the economy that is battling to stabilise the effects of fuel subsidy removal also face that of power, and both are critical in production. For me, it will have a negative e ect on production and also further increase cost of goods and services. However, the obvious fact is that the said power is not even available; hence, many companies are folding up because of the erratic supply. Removal of subsidy on power adds more to production challenges and to the su ering of ordinary Nigerians.