Baba Aye's

The inauguration of Nigeria’s fourth, democratically-elected President, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, has come and gone and he now seems to be on the pathway of defining his place in the history of Nigeria. The 53-year old zoologist, it would appear, is not one to allow such mundane things as humble backgrounds to dampen the heights of such definition’s horizons. Born into a fishing community in Otueke, within Ogbia Local Government Area (where crude oil was first discovered in commercial quantities in Nigeria, at about the time of his birth), he has risen on the scripts of what many consider as “good luck”, inscribed for good measure as his name. Leaving the university to join the Peoples Democratic Party at its inception in 1998, he emerged as a humble, lacklustre deputy governor the following year, beginning the fairy tale of becoming governor by default, a humble Vice-President who once again by default became President on the death of an el-Cid of a President that Yar’Adua was, he i...

It would appear that Nigerians are set for the inauguration of President Goodluck Jonathan, as I write this piece. A lot of expectations might be borne by manner, but not a few citizens of our great country have gotten used to the disillusionment that is certain to follow faith in our politicians as night follows day. While the political euphoria of inauguration hangs in the air, a very economic germane question remains very much unresolved thus far. We are heading into the middle of the fiscal year, but, wither the annual budget? It borders on absurdity for the government of a country that claims it aims at becoming one of the twenty leading economies in the world in eight and a half years time to run its economy without a clear-cut budget for five months. It is a reflection of the absolute lack of a sense of planning on the part of our rulers, under any condition that, the appropriation bill, if at all passed by the 6th National Assembly, would have been done only during its twili...