Nigerians hail Bawumia ‘brilliant’; I wish he was their Veep

Vice-president, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia

Nigerian author Oye Arikanki said in 2019 that Nigeria needs a top economic adviser like Ghana’s Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia.

According to him, Mr. Bawumia made a huge contribution to the “digitization” of the country and hoped for the same in his home country.

Arikanki praised the Veep, adding that the measures put in place by this visionary leader will ensure that all government payments will go electronic by 2020.

Read the full article originally published on August 28, 2019 on Ghanaweb

Some Nigerians hailed the economic prowess and brilliance of Ghanaian Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and would like him to be theirs in this oil-rich country.

An article seen on punchng.com, a Nigerian online portal, observes that the Nigerian does not have a popular economist and solid economic theory with which they run the Nigerian economy, unlike Ghana where Dr Bawumia, as as head of the economic management team, is in charge of the business.

Using Ghana as a model for other African countries, Oye Arikanki who wrote the article said:

“Bawumia is doing an expert job of implementing a full implementation of digitization in all government ministries and departments, which has increased government revenue and made it easier to do business. Bawumia’s theory that using digitization to drive government systems has reduced waste and generated revenue, thereby making government policy implementation more efficient. Moreover? He put the Ghanaian economy in the framework of predictive and gradual growth. By 2020, all government payments in Ghana will go electronic. All over Ghana you can see the effect of digitization in the port, court services, land registry, passport applications, health records, etc. In Ghana, soon no one will be transporting records from hospital to hospital because everything has gone digital.

He added: “A few days ago, President Buhari inaugurated his new ministers and made new appointments. Oddly enough, there has been no appointment of a new economic adviser who is supposed to be a prominent member of the new cabinet. In fact, as far as the nation’s finance ministry is concerned, it’s old wine in a new bottle. The former minister is retained as the substantive Minister of Finance with an additional budget and planning portfolio. “

“Honestly Nigeria needs a leading economic adviser like the late Professor Sam Aluko who will write a thesis and develop theory and recommendations for use in managing the economy like digitizing all departments government and economy as Bawumia does in Ghana. All the fire brigades or what I call Bolekaja’s economic theory that is currently in use in Nigeria will not work and will not be enough to run an economy of around 200 million people. “