POLITICAL WILL: Okonjo Iweala’s Disclosures Splits Jonathan’s Camps

Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

FORMER Supervising Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance in the previous administration, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala on Thursday dropped a bombshell indicting the administration of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan over ineptitude and aligned with the position of the present ruling All Progressives Congress, APC that the lapses of the administration put the nation in the predicament it is presently.

Earlier, the former minister had stated that she would soon open up, however without giving details on the direction the disclosures were aimed at. Majority in the polity particularly from the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP-led previous government had assumed that the exposé would likely indict some public officeholders in the present administration on how the indiscriminate diversion and looting of public funds were extended to them.

Iweala was reported by the Cable to have explicitly blamed the previous administration for lack of political will to judiciously manage the resources of the country, ridiculously, in a government she occupied the most active position and defended all the policies until the government was unbelievably voted out of office through the ballot papers in favour of the incumbent President Mohammadu Buhari of the APC.  

Opinions though appreciated her remarks, however registered disappointments that the former Minister never resigned but challenged all the oppositions on the same point when it could be remedied rather than opening up at this time monumental damages had already been done to the nation. 

By the minister’s statements, the instruments and means available during the administration which literarily implies to human resources and capital were sound, capable and substantial except the political will which points to the direction of the leader. Suffice to say that her boss she defended with the last blood in her while in office was inept and a liability to the nation.

Speaking on the topic, ‘Inequality, growth and resilience’ at George Washington University, in the United States of America, Iweala compared the previous Jonathan administration with Chief Olusegun  in which she also served as a minister of Finance stating that the latter saved because the political will was there. She therefore concluded that the inability to save the crude oil revenue by the previous administration is exclusively responsible for the ugly economic situations facing the country.

  

“We saved $22bn because the will to do so was there. And when the 2008/2009 crisis came, we were able to draw on those savings precisely to issue about five percent of the Gross Domestic Product as fiscal stimulus to the economy, and we never had to come to the bank or the fund.

“This time around, and this is the key now, you need not only to have the instrument but you also need the political will. In my second time as minister, from 2011 to 2015, we had the instrument, we had the means, we had done it before, but zero political will.

“So we were not able to save when we should have. That is why you find that Nigeria is now in the situation it is in, along with so many other countries.