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or the All Progressive Congress (APC) and President Buhari to realise election pledges on change to the country, there is the need for the President, who is the chief executive of the country, to change his approach. In Government, there is always no time out for any reasons. The take off date of the Government was the handover date of 29 May 2015. The time lag between 1 April 2015 when the President was elected and 29 May 2015 the Government was handed to Buhari was actually enough for him to have selected his cabinet and then hit the ground running from 29 May 2015. Therefore, the APC and Buhari should not be begging for time for the Government to take off even as at 12 August 2015 of this piece.

The multiple but debilitating and crushing problems of the country are begging to be solved. It takes less time to solve a problem or multiple problems even simultaneously if you know what to do, have the road map and plan of what you want to do. There is not the slightest doubt that the know-how for what we need to do exist within APC let alone the whole country. Buhari made the solving of corruptions of yesterday and banishing them out for tomorrow and hence in the country his cardinal policy. The momentum for this when it is even yet to start is already overwhelming Buhari. He cannot think about any other issue but corruption.

The corruptions of yesterday are historical issues and would not melt away. They can be visited at anytime. With Buhari on the saddle of the Government the corruptions may not again rear their heads for at least the next four years. This means, the Government must not allow the solving of corruption to take priority over the futures of the country. The futures of the country in terms of social, economic and political restructuring are what need more attention in order to secure her going concern. In Government, a four year term is like overnight. If Buhari does not change his gear and accelerate, he may not even solve the corruption whose basket he is now putting all his eggs let alone touch other issues, even one quarter way.

Those who are always averse to change, correction, probe and their delegated saboteurs are always in wait to frustrate, as Government take off is delayed. They are already surrounding Buhari directly or indirectly and looking for opportunity to pounce. They have unexplained or doubtful wealth to flaunt, influence, distract and frustrate. Since 29 May 1999 to 28 May 2015, who were those that did not pay one kobo duty on the goods they imported and produced in the country in the name of the People Democratic Party (PDP) political waiver to hoard or launder money for them? Today they have billions of US dollars to refund to the country, if Buhari is serious about those who actually swindled the country, even in connivance.

Corruption in the country did not start from Jonathan Government period. Therefore, in Buhari’s effort to solving corruption in the country, he must look beyond Jonathan Government years and as far as up to the Military regime. This means those that are to be assigned for the task would have job for the next four years of the Government. As last in first out approach should be adopted; the probe and recovering of looted fund would start from Jonathan Government. After Jonathan Government period has been covered, the rest of the preceding Governments period will be simple to probe and with less time.

For Buahri to carrying out his priority policy of corruption problem solving without neglecting the other pressing problems of the country, he need to delegate. The Vice President, Osinbajo, should be assigned to head all the various panels that are to be set up for the different probes on the issue of corruption from unaccounted, misappropriated, stolen funds and projects in the country, especially since 29 May 1999. The Vice President, and moreover as a lawyer, is well disposed to head the various probe panels. He would only need to brief and take further instructions from the President where and when necessary. With this Buhari will be able to focus his attention on the other pressing issues of social, economic and political restructuring that are paramount to the future of the country. Here Buhari’s four years term of Government will not be crippled and consumed by one policy of corruption solving, as it appears at moment.

Governors are not those to organise and conduct the necessary investigations or probe for the Federal Government. Rather than calling foreign firms of accountants and auditors to again come and carry out investigative audit to uproot the missing and misappropriated funds and mismanaged projects for us, Buahri should appoint a team of about twenty Nigerian professional accountants, as individuals, who were trained at top firms and have at least ten years practice experience. They can be readily available to be dispatched to any necessary investigation in the country. While they are not on assignment they can conduct researches to help the President to make the right decisions.

Nigeria is not a poor country but for the successive PDP Governments that mismanage her finances. It not that there were inadequate systems of control and the mechanisms to enforce the controls but the order from above that permeate every aspect of our society that would not allow any good systems to function normally. Who are then to be blamed for the endemic corruptions that today retard the country? The leaderships are to be blamed. Here leadership should not be isolated to the head of state but all the segmental heads in society who dish out orders from the top for rules and regulations to be subverted. Here subordinates circumvent the systems of control and ignore the rule of law and in addition serve themselves as they are protected from the top.

For Buhari to stop the reigning impunity in the country, it should not only be enough to formulate adequate policies; adequate structure; adequate systems of control; the enforcement of the controls but those that are in charge, accountable and control also need to be controlled; Reversed Control. That is nobody should be seen to be above the law. This is the primary duty of the law enforcement agents and the Court Judges, who should always ignore order from above, for example, not to arrest, prosecute or try certain people. But the Police and Judges must not only be accountable but must be firmly controlled.

For improved security; Buhari should immediately ensure that the Nigeria Police Force is decentralised along the lines of Regional Government areas, you shall read below. There should be a minimum of two or a maximum of three Independent Police Commands in each Regional Government area. Independent Police Command is where every head of Command is accountable only in his area and responsible to the President. We do not need State or Regional Police forces. The present number of four hundred thousand Police personnel is far two small for the country. The number of Police personnel need to be increased up far more than this and so are the numbers for Customs, State Security Service and Prison Warders.

Buhari is already taking action on revenue of the country for all Federal establishments to paying their turnover into one consolidate account. All the establishments must pay 100% of their turnover into this account if the scheme is to work for Buhari Government. There should not be partial payment by some of the establishments. What Buhari should do in addition is the establishment of a Ministry of Treasury. Basically, the Ministry of Treasury is not going to be collecting revenue, cash, from and for the designated Federal establishments. It should be there to control the revenue generated by the Federal establishments in order to ensure nothing is being misappropriated or held back. I do not want to stress further on this matter as I have written extensively on it before, some of which were published on this column and some of the newspapers at home, in Nigeria, especially under article entitled, Financing Nigeria’s Annual Budget, and in my various election manifestos on my website.

It is fair to say that there is not much that is wrong with the present corporate structure or organisation of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) but the daily crude oil theft, inappropriate method of crude oil sale and lack of fund accountability. Those that are employed in the corporation are not only well educated with fine brains, they are also well trained by the corporation. The order from above at Aso Rock and lack of Ministerial supervision are responsible for the crude oil theft and fund misappropriation in the corporation. In as much as the fraudulent practices are perpetrated on the order from Aso Rock and the related Minister, the management then serve themselves from what they are instructed to do, as no questions will be asked.

As the corporation can now no longer be able to misappropriate some of the crude oil produced or keep the proceeds of sale of crude oil; there shall be little or no avenue for revenue misappropriation except perhaps petty cash from its budget and internal contract awards. These can easily be controlled. Most importantly, the Government should ensure the corporation expand its sales department. All the crude oil and products of the corporation that are to be sold should be sold only by the staff of the sales department. The personnel of the sales department should be increased. The corporation should no longer allocate crude oil to any outside persons to sell, even if this was the instruction from Aso Rock. In the past much of the crude oil were allocated to outside individuals to sell on behalf of the corporation. Much of the proceeds did not find their way back to the corporation. This was bribery or collusion to share fund from Aso Rock and the Minister of Petroleum. It was not ordered nor authorised by the management of the corporation, who know without order from above they will be picked up like flies by the State Security Service and the Economic & Financial Crime Commission.

There is not much you can do today to improve the economy of the country without adequate electricity and landline telephone. Buhari should revisit especially electricity and landline telephone projects and their privatisation since 29 May 1999. For example, it is only the distribution aspects of the electricity and landline telephone that should be privatised. The generation and transmission aspects of electricity and cable aspect of the landline telephone should be in full public ownership. If the Government knows what to do, it will not borrow a kobo to establish and finance these at full capacity requirement of the country.

Buhari should not go globe trotting in search for investors. Foreign investors already know our country. They have their ears and noses on the ground in our country. When conditions are right for them they will troop in on their own accord. Many Nigerians have legitimate fund which are stacked abroad. If they even bring at least half of the fund home to invest, we shall not be clamouring for foreign investors. Buhari need to assure these Nigerians to bring their fund home to invest. In the process, they will not even be erroneously hounded for the wealth.

Salary payment is today a very serious problem in the country. Many public and private establishments owe their staff many months if not many years salary. Yet there is excess liquidity in our banks. The minimum lending rate in the country is 13%. Banks do not need high interest rate regime to make more money nor the Central Bank need to control liquidity and inflation successfully with high interest rate. High interest regime in Nigeria is maintained to please a class but powerful people in society who know not the actual use of money to make money but to dump it with the bank for high interest yield. Today, in many advanced countries, the minimum lending rate is between 0% and 1.5% yet their banks make hefty profit every year. Buhari should ensure that the minimum lending rate in Nigeria is not more than 5%.

It should be a crime for any employer in the country to owe workers’ salary beyond the normal payment period. All public sector employees’ salary, from Federal to Local Government, should be paid through the banks. If an establishment does not have the money, the banks should, nevertheless, pay the salary through a form of arranged overdraft scheme. Those in the private sector who cannot afford to pay salary regularly should be obliged to adopt the same bank overdraft payment scheme. The scheme of regular payment should also be extended to small contractors and small suppliers. Their payment after the completion of their contracts should not be delayed more than one month.

For the public sector, there is light in the tunnel. The new measure of consolidated revenue where the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) would release fund say quarterly in advance to each establishment according to its cash flow budget would now enable regular salary and contract payments in the country. With this scheme and the arranged bank overdraft; there is not any organisation in the country that shall have genuine reasons not to pay salary regularly. We need to embrace the economics of timely and regular salary payment in the country. For example, a hungry employee is an unproductive employee.

In order to have a firm control of the finances of the country, the offices of the Accountant and Auditor Generals should be abolished. All the Federal Government payments etc should be maintained by the Federal Ministry of Finance. The Presidency, National Assembly, Judiciary, each Federal Ministry, Department and Agency should each operates as a separate entity with it own Accountants and Internal Auditors. The Federal Audit Commission should appoint private firms of Nigerian Chartered Accountants to conduct regular audit on the procedure, books and accounts of the public establishments and those of the State and Local Governments. At this stage, the Government should no longer audit itself.

For Nigeria to have a stable and growing economy free from significant imported cost, have valued currency, to stop unnecessary and easy capital flight, the auction of the Naira should be stopped. The Naira should be restored as an independent and convertible currency in the foreign exchanges. With this all the currency exchanges and remittances from and into the country would go through the normal banking and foreign exchange system. With today computerisation and current method of daily foreign exchange release to the banks for only the permissible transactions all but set the ground for the restoration of the Naira as a convertible currency in the foreign exchanges. What are we waiting? Nigeria is big, strategic enough and has the foreign reserve to maintain her independent and convertible currency in the foreign exchanges. If these are in place, the realistic foreign exchange convertible rate of the Naira could be found from N5 to N10 to one US dollar.

The Federal Government should abolish domiciliary bank accounts system in the country. In as much as the commercial banks can hold some of their funds in foreign currencies for cash transaction on the counter, the individuals and non bank companies have not the actual need to holding bank accounts in foreign currencies. In addition to the foreign exchange round tripping abuses with these accounts, domiciliary banking accounts are the conduit through which the holders keep their corruptly acquired fund, transfer the money in the same foreign currency out of the country through internet banking to their overseas bank accounts instantaneous without the need for the banks to handle the transaction for them.

The Federal Ministers should be able to control their Ministries, be on ground as to what happen in every department, that things are done accordingly, contracts are being performed and fully executed, especially those that generate revenue. For example, a revenue critical Ministry such the Ministry of Petroleum Resources should have a capable Minister. The Minister should be able to ascertain at all times the actual crude oil and gas that are extracted in the country on daily basis and that every single barrel of crude oil produced is accounted. The Minister should be able to see that those crude oil and gas are wholly sold by the sales department. The Minister should ascertain that the sales proceeds are totally accounted on daily basis. With these, there would be no need to be setting up committees upon committees of investigation to be doing the job which a Minister was first appointed to do and the President was elected.

On political restructuring, Buhari should abolish the present thirty-six State Government areas. They are unnecessary fragmentation of Government. They prevent the Federal Government from reaching the grassroots on one hand and prevent the Local Governments from functioning properly on the other hand. They are considerable waste of public money. They are avoidable Government and expenditure. The thirty-six States should be replaced with ten Regional Government areas; five from the South and five from the North as follow;

In the South, there should be; Lagos Region, South West Region, Mid-West Region, South East Region and South South Region.

In the North, there should be; Middle Belt West Region, Middle Belt East Region, North East Region. Centre North Region and North West Region.

How many of our towns or cities are more than 10 kilometres radius from their centre? One big town or city should be one Local Government area. Two or more small towns should be under one Local Government area. With this measure, the number of Local Government areas in the country will be far less than the present seven hundred and seventy four (774) areas. This should be followed by full autonomy for the Local Governments.

All that we need to do at NNPC, other high revenue generating Federal establishments, in fact every public establishment, is to ensure right management personnel, establishment of adequate systems of control, enforcement of the controls and efficient control mechanisms on ground. Upon all, we must stop illegal order from above and unnecessary political interference into the management of the public establishments. If we are able to collect, account and manage the generated Federal revenue efficiently, we shall have less cash flow and financial problems. All of these re-organisations and efficiency cash benefits would result in more jobs creation.

To know more about this author; read his forty pages Presidential manifestos for the 2015 general election from his website; (apiainternational.co.uk) and his previous articles that were published here on this column. He did not release the manifesto before the election nor participate in the election for certain reasons.