Obasanjo Far Better Than Buhari On Growth Of Nigeria, El-Rufai

Nasir El-Rufai, Kaduna state governor says former President Olusegun Obasanjo recorded tremendous economic growth than any other administration including the current government led by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Mr El-Rufai who was speaking on Channels Tv morning show special program for this year
Kadinvest 6.0 ongoing in the state, frowned at the lack of coordination of economic policies under the administration of Buhari.

The governor cited consistency in policy formulation and coordination as the catalyst of economic growth.

El-Rufai was the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory under Obasanjo between 2003- 2007.

“I think our founding fathers who created the National Economic Council made the Vice President as chairman and all governors and the Central Bank Governor as members envisaged that as federal and states there would be a need for coordination of policies and maintaining consistency in policies from sub- nationals to the national government.

“And we discussed many of those and we were able to resolve them. The Vice President has provided excellent leadership that even opposition party governors commended him for that.

“But there is some policy disconnect that does not get escalated to the National Economic Council and they do happen sometimes because government agencies, unfortunately, prefer to work in isolation they are very territorial.

“Sometimes ministry of Trade and Investment has some objectives in their sector but the Ministry of Finance doesn’t know what they are doing and they come with something that conflicts with that policy.

“That is why in the Obasanjo government which I served as a Minister we had an economic management team that looks at this kind of conflict and proposes solutions to an economic policy coordinating committee chaired by the Vice President then.

” So, if you look at the Obasanjo years you will see that was one period we had the fastest rate of economic growth in Nigerian’s history. Because policy coordination was much better because at the level of governors and Vice President we can only deal with the issues that are big and are being escalated.

“You need a technical level team that will look at those policies debate them and propose options because NEC will only say yes or no approved or not approved.

“But I think a lot of that is not happening now and I think it needs to happen. The presidential economic adversary council is supposed to do that before it gets to NEC, even though they brief us from time to time.”