Comedian dishes hard truths on Nigerian economy

September 5, 2016 8:21 PM

Ali Baba takes to his Instagram page to ask some burning questions concerning the state of the Nigerian economy.

As many celebrities have been forced to do in recent times,

ALSO READ: Comedian once named his dogs OBJ, IBB, Abacha

Although the questions he shared via his Instagram page are mostly rhetorical in nature, they are enough to provoke deep concerns in the hearts of Nigerians.

According to the comedian, the country has gotten to the point where, even Jesus Christ, cannot save it.

He wrote:

“The economy will remain like this for a long while because the strings that pull us into dire straits are still pulling us even much stronger.

“How did we get here? We were making so much from oil and neglected all other sources of revenue.

“We did not only neglect those sources of revenue, we did not invest the revenue from oil in infrastructural development of the country. We were not futuristic in our planning either.

“Did we increase the number of hostels in our universities to accommodate the new numbers of students? Pay teachers well? Did we build more roads to take care of the millions of cars and transportation needs? Did we improve the services of the police force, Did we use the money to build better hospitals? Did the new industries create more jobs? Did we improve our power supply?

“Did we have stronger and modified laws that made sure that people who broke the laws were punished adequately to discourage others?

“Did we tidy up our pension scheme so that people are assured that they did not need to steal to assure themselves of better retirement?

“What have we done to reduce the cost of administration? What kind of enabling environment has the government created to grow the economy? What have we done to ensure the right people got elected? Have we developed our tourism potentials to attract foreign investors and revenues? Better banks? What have we done to curb corruption? What steps have we taken in the direction of housing? Who has security votes helped?

“We have failed to do all of that… ‘NOW OUR ALMIGHTY’ crude prices that were our saving grace are low. The production is even nearly nonexistent, thanks to militants.

“There is backlog of owed salaries, uncompleted projects, dead refineries, high unemployment and huge numbers of the unemployable.

“We are borrowing even Jesus cannot save us unless we create new sources of revenue.

“What do I know? I am an ordinary rib-cracker, I dey look,” the comedian concluded.

Ali Baba has been very vocal on issues concerning the country amongst other celebrities and he is showing no signs of backing down.

ALSO READ: Comedian narrates how his mum almost lost her limbs

The 51-year-old stand up comedian is one of the veterans in his trade and is widely looked up to by upcoming talents. He has also been vigorously involved in sensitizing the public on important issues.

Not one to shy away from speaking his mind, the veteran comedian constantly writes on religion and social issues.