The Minister of Finance has come under significant criticisms in the last two years as many Nigerians view the economy as stagnant with very little economic progress to be happy about. It’s therefore not surprising that she will be the subject of most criticisms considering that most of her policies have not worked or will take long to work. Her critics are far and wide and at least she acknowledged that. However, what surprised me was how she characterized critics in the full transcripts of the Budget presentation last week, which has just been released. In the transcripts she basically mentions three critics whose “constructive” criticisms she welcomes and the rest off course…well she doesn’t. Hear her
Understandably, people are scared now and a lot of criticism is flying around. We welcome the constructive criticism that some observers and commentators like Mr. Bismarck Rewane, Dr. Ayo Teriba and Prof. Akin Iwayemi have brought to the table. But we should beware of some armchair critics whose analyses are not only bogus but are not founded on facts. When we proposed reasonable budget benchmarks that will allow savings, many of these same critics criticized government saying it was ridiculous to save for a rainy day when it is raining and there are many needs.
What more can I say…the views of the rest of us are apparently garbage to her.
We need to understand the context in which the minister made that statement. The fact is that there are many armchair critics all around. The minister is absolutely on point with that statement.