Flag bearers of the different political parties to the various elective positions in the forthcoming General Election have been engaging the voting public in a bid to woo them. In a recent interaction with the members of the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) in Lagos, one of the presidential candidates expressed his readiness to sell non-performing assets. Debates and engagements with different stakeholders would give the populace the opportunity to scrutinise the policies and programmes of the office seekers.

However, New Telegraph notes with displeasure that some of the policies and programmes being branded are unrealistic and members of the voting public are not as engaging as expected in the face of promises by those seeking elective office. While we acknowledge that the cost of governance across all levels of administration in the country is high, it would, however, be counterproductive to liquidate or sell off public infrastructure or ministries, departments and agencies (MDAS) of government. We believe doing so will see more Nigerians becoming jobless thereby worsening the country’s already bad unemployment situation.

Dependants would no longer have breadwinners on whose shoulders to lean on to help provide some of their basic needs. Such development would further pose a huge obstacle to national security with more persons getting enlisted into the army of criminally – minded individuals who kidnap fellow citizens while demanding the payment of ransoms running into millions of naira.

Quite often, public assets are usually sold to bidders who are either members of the political, military or business class. Such opportunists become richer while the public till is fleeced. It should be acknowledged that some of the public assets and MDAs, except for a few, are in various levels of dysfunctionality. Sale of such non-performing assets/entities is not and would not be the way out, as that is quite pedestrian and escapist. Governance at any level is not and could not be regarded as a tea party. Instead, governance is, for want of a better expression, taxing and therefore calls for the highest level of cognitive ability.

Such, without mincing words, is required of every office – seeker. Poor administration/ management is the bane of virtually all public assets/ outfits. While we commend the NGE for providing the platform for the engagement, it was, and is still worrisome that, such a high- profile body was reportedly unable to ask probing questions and pick holes in the proposed but retrogressive plan to sell off national assets. New Telegraph points out that some assets liquidated or sold in the past or are being pencilled down for the same fate were made possible by past administrations in the pre-colonial , colonial and post-colonial eras.

The referred administrations successfully resisted the temptation to fleece the nation of its assets/ endowments but opted to go all out to immortalise themselves on the positive side of history by establishing them. It is with nostalgia that we recall Posts and Telecommunication (P and T), Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), Nigerian Coal Corporation (NCC) and the Public Works Department (PWD). They all played pivotal roles in the socio-economic growth of Nigeria. P and T were split into two with the postal arm becoming the Nigerian Postal Services (NIPOST) while the telecommunications division metamorphosed into the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL).

NIPOST is still in existence but NITEL has since been liquidated. But even despite the over- glorification of the private telecommunication sector, the emerging private telecommunications companies are reportedly relying on NITEL’s facilities for their operations. By relying on Onyeama, Okpara and Iva Valley Mines in Enugu, the NCC made coal available to the NRC for the scheduled operations of trains for the movement of persons and goods across the nation. PWD played a leading role in the construction and maintenance of highways, rail lines and buildings as well as in the actualisation of facilities like electricity.

PWD was behind the scientific-cum-engineering phenomenon that resulted in the generation and distribution of electricity in Nigeria in Lagos in 1896. Two years later the development of narrow gauge rail lines commenced in the Iddo area of Lagos with the PWD playing a leading role with regard to the project.

Nigeria does need auctioneers waiting in ambush in politics to sell the country’s assets, as that would not result in a win-win deal for the people. Any office seeker should strive harder to identify the nation’s economic and other problems in order to produce realistic and enduring solutions to them. He/she should purge himself of some nepotism considerations that have taken the place of meritocracy in the current administration now its twilight.

Merely helping to fund one’s campaign should not qualify an individual for a ministerial position or that of a director-general or even that of a chairman of a board. A tried and tested expert, who may not be a politician, should be allowed to occupy either of the stated positions. Since each ministry has a permanent secretary, who is a technocrat, on no account, should a senior minister and a junior one, known as a minister of state, be appointed to oversee one ministry, as these amounts to a waste of limited funds.

We insist that all workers in the MDAs, whether members or non-members of the management, be given measurable targets, which must be accompanied with distinct timelines for execution and results. By so doing, public infrastructure and MDAS would become self-sustaining and would not need to be sold to individuals, masquerading as economic wolves, either as part of the political, business or bureaucratic class.