In most countries, the position of central bank governor is one of a conservative low-key economist who only makes public utterances a few times a year around monetary policy. Nigeria is not most countries.

My advice to President Jonathan and his handlers is to stop wasting their time trying to campaign on his job record. Those who have decided to vote for him will not do so because he has taken Nigeria to the moon. His record on the economy is a clear ‘F’ grade. As one reviews the laundry list of micro interventions the government calls its achievements, one wonders whether such list is all that the government could deliver with an unprecedented oil boom and an unprecedented public debt accumulation.

It is not often that one intervention has the effect of resetting the tone of a national conversation, especially coming from an individual that has been away from public commentary for a few years, but Soludo comes with considerable credibility, as part of an economic team that delivered strong growth at a time of lower oil prices.

“Soludo’s single-handed mismanagement of the banking sector led to an incredible accumulation of liabilities that will cost tax payers about N5.67 trillion (being the total face value of AMCON-issued bonds) to clean up. It is only in Nigeria where someone who perpetrated such a colossal economic atrocity would have the temerity to make assertions on public debt and the management of the economy”