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President Goodluck Jonathan no doubt chose a nice platitude for his term as an elected president – transformation agenda. Considering the level of poverty in the country as a result of the perennial ineptitude of those who foist themselves on Nigerians as their leaders over the years, a promise by a freshly elected President Jonathan to transform the system surely attracted hope. That hope so far remains misplaced. Among the contenders for gold for further lynching the economy are the Governor of Central Bank, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the Minister for Aviation, Mrs. Stella Oduah and of course the Minister for Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke.

Under their watch, the departments of the national economy they oversee are surely dying. The biggest culprit is Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the egregiously garrulous Central Bank Governor. Short of courting controversies and showmanship, Sanusi has concluded his tour of duty at the apex Bank, after the controversial audits and sack of the thieving Bank executives. Probably because of the limitedness of his training and experience while working in the commercial Banks, principally as an auditor, the Kano Prince has no idea how to grow the economy. His forte is reining in spending, not growing an economy.

Presently, even the most capitalized commercial Bank in Nigeria lends money at about 27%, and none of the commercial Banks give medium to long term facility to industries, just overdrafts and loans to last one to two years. With only short term facility available at a run away interest rate, no genuine economic activity can take place with money borrowed from a Nigerian Bank. Yet Sanusi’s supreme responsibility is to design deft monetary policies to ensure that genuine economic activities take place, to grow the national economy. Any surprise that despite his management of inflation, through a strangulating mopping up of liquidity, the Naira has remained weak against the dollar.

The result is that Nigeria’s dependency on imports continues to consolidate, at the expense of productivity. Still, the genuine importers are not better off, because while Naira is borrowed at high interest rates, pauperized Nigerians are unable to buy because of their poor purchasing power. Thus only importers of cheap fake products, who circumvent the payment of import duties, give a semblance of economic wellbeing. This crisis when added to paying off the rent seekers, which is beyound Sanusi’s brief, turns the entire economy into a quandary.

In effect no genuine economic activity is taking place, substantially because of the ineffective monetary policies of Governor Sanusi. The way things are; those who attempt to get involved in genuine economic activity usually land in excruciating debt trap. As Governor Sanusi’s bolekaja debt recovery tactics confirms, many of the entrepreneurs on the published debtors list have raked up enough debts for their third generation; while the rest of us falsely see them as ‘the big men’. In practice getting involved in any genuine economic activity has turned to a Catch 22, as head or tale, the head is on a slaughter slab.

The Minister for Aviation, Stella Oduah on her part, no doubt has her capabilities. She was very instrumental to the election of President Jonathan in 2007, through her well received Neighbour to Neighbour media stunts. But as Minister for Aviation, the sector has never had it so bad. While cosmetic refurbishment is taking place at Muritala Muhammed Airport, Lagos and a few other airports; the entire industry is an emergency theater. Unfortunately the multi-billion Naira federal government intervention fund to resuscitate the aviation sector have been mismanaged, and so far, the Honourable Minister appears helpless to push for accountability.

Whether she is responsible for the mismanagement of the intervention fund or not, the bottom line is that only two airlines, Aero Contractors and Arik Airlines still manage to fly; and the result is near chaos on one of the most import local routes, Lagos-Abuja-Lagos. Even recently there were scurrilous allegations that a top level official of the aviation ministry attempted to muzzle Arik airliners for untoward reasons. Again, Ms Oduah’s attempt to borrow huge sums of money from China to redevelop some of the airports failed to impress industry watchers, even as the national assembly threats her program with suspicion.

Mrs. Diezeani Alison-Madueke is another Minister who is successfully lynching the industry placed under her watch. But for being the conduit for raking in money worked for, by foreign oil companies, her primary goose, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) would have since been wound up for bankruptcy. Each time the Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative finishes an audit of the corporation, the level of their indebtedness to the federation account runs into trillions of dollars, and of course it has no ability and even any desire to pay. Interestingly the corporation’s former leadership had boosted that they are beyound any legislative oversight, and as such it reels in perpetual incompetence.

Operated as perhaps the most opaque public corporation in the world, the NNPC is notorious over the years as the chief operator of slush funds for any power controlling the Nigerian federal authority. As if worst is not bad enough, the Ministry under Diezeani’s watch in the past one year has presided over perhaps the worst financial heist in the history of subsidy in the world. Between two to three trillion dollars were paid over the counter to mostly phantom importers of fuel. As the House of Representatives investigative report and Mr. Aig-Imokhuede’s review of the report showed, many of the beneficiaries of the subsidy, merely cooked up papers and collected our common patrimony as earnings.

So when President Jonathan’s men sell the dummy that transformation is going on, your guess is as good as mine. It is fake.