LAURETTA ONOCHIE

H.E. Atiku Abubakar has unveiled his 12-point policy commitments for the 2027 presidential election, outlining his plans to Rescue, Revive and Restore Nigeria. 1. Restore targeted petroleum subsidies to reduce transportation costs and the rising cost of living. 2. Review NELFUND and consider debt forgiveness, based on the principle that Nigerian students deserve scholarships and affordable access to education, not crippling debt. 3. Implement the Supreme Court judgment on Local Government autonomy, ensuring funds due to local councils reach them directly and are used for grassroots development. 4. Revive and develop the Eastern maritime port corridor by restoring the operational capacity and competitiveness of the ports in Port Harcourt, Calabar and Warri, while advancing the development of the Uyo Deep Sea Port. 5. Reopen Nigeria’s land borders to revive legal cross-border businesses, support legitimate traders and facilitate regional commerce. 6. Review the electricity sector and ref...

  One of the enduring problems of governance in Nigeria is not simply that we lack brilliant people. Nigeria produces brilliant people in abundance. Our problem has often been how we choose the people who govern us. Too frequently, appointments are viewed through the prisms of ethnicity, religion, political patronage, friendship, family connections and social status. The first question becomes: Where is he from? Who recommended her? Which political camp does he belong to? But there is another philosophy of leadership: find the best person you can find and give that person the opportunity to serve. That philosophy is central to one of the less discussed aspects of the public career of Atiku Abubakar — his reputation as a political headhunter. Long before today's arguments about technocratic government, Atiku was deliberately searching for professionals, intellectuals and administrators who could bring competence into government. Indeed, Atiku has explained that at the beginning of ...

The Oronsaye Report is about making government smaller, less wasteful and more useful — so that money spent maintaining unnecessary bureaucracy can instead be spent on Nigerians. The report dates back to 2012. A committee chaired by former Head of the Civil Service Stephen Oronsaye examined the huge number of federal parastatals, commissions and agencies. It identified 541 bodies and recommended, among other measures, reducing 263 statutory agencies to 161, abolishing 38, merging 52 and returning 14 to departments within ministries.  The central problem was duplication: different agencies were sometimes being funded to perform similar or overlapping jobs. THE ORONSAYE REPORT: WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO THE ORDINARY NIGERIAN? Imagine a family which earns ₦300,000 every month. But that family maintains three drivers when it owns only one car; three generators when it needs one; and several people doing essentially the same job. Every month, money goes into their salaries, offices, vehicles...

Across the world, governments subsidise things they consider strategically important to the welfare, security and economic survival of their citizens. They subsidise agriculture.  They subsidise energy.  They subsidise food.  They subsidise public transportation.  They subsidise housing.  They subsidise healthcare.  They subsidise education.  They subsidise electricity and, in a number of oil- and gas-producing countries, governments intervene to keep domestic energy prices below international market levels. So the real economic question for Nigeria should never have been simply: “Subsidy or no subsidy?” The more intelligent question is: What should Nigeria subsidise, who should benefit, how much can the country afford, and how do we prevent the subsidy from becoming an avenue for corruption? THE WORLD HAS NOT ABANDONED SUBSIDIES The evidence is overwhelming. The International Energy Agency reported that governments spent about $620 billion subsidising...