Good riddance to the president who discouraged reading

So I called the office to give them the information.  A while later, the boss called.  “Ibraheem, instead of the books, the courier company called to inform us that we needed to pay about N150, 000 as duty for the books.”150,000 for books of N212, 000!  What kind of nonsense it this? Then I recalled […]

So I called the office to give them the information.  A while later, the boss called.  “Ibraheem, instead of the books, the courier company called to inform us that we needed to pay about N150, 000 as duty for the books.”
150,000 for books of N212, 000!  What kind of nonsense it this? Then I recalled that Jideofor Adibe, President Jonathan’s open admirer, wrote that Jonathan had increased tariff on books to over 60% to encourage local publishing, thereby violating UNESCO’s tariff limits on books and scientific material.
Like the president’s other policies, this too was harebrained. How could you, in a country which desperately needed education, enact a policy for a publishing sector that’s nonexistent?  Also, since Nigeria does not have alternatives to the books we ordered and is not ready or willing to produce them, Jonathan is only not encouraging the publishing sector, but also discouraging the general population from reading and learning.It appears the president himself doesn’t read, so why should he encourage others to do so?  But more on that shortly.
Let’s focus on the economics for now.  
Henry Hazlitt, wrote in his classic, ‘Economics in One Lesson’ that government interventions in the economy when such interventions only focus on the short-term and address only a special group of people, yield bad consequences.
“This is the persistent tendency of men to see only the immediate effects of a given policy,” he writes in his book, first published in 1946, “or its effects only on a special group, and to neglect to inquire what the long-run effects of that policy will be not only on that special group but on all groups. It is the fallacy of overlooking secondary consequences.”
In Jonathan’s case, there’s no any positive immediate effect only negative.  For example, we don’t see publishing companies opening shops to answer the call of the policy, but we see imported books becoming more expensive in a country where there are no alternatives.  Subsequently the money that parents spend on their wards to attend school is increasing.  Oh, President Jonathan, you’re one twisted individual!
But it’s not surprising.  The president doesn’t read.  In 2011, when Jonathan denied that zoning existed in his party and many people, led by Uncle Mohammed Haruna, told him that zoning was actually in the constitution of the party, he replied that he had not read the constitution and “maybe” he “should read it.”
I don’t think he ever read it!  Also, his subsequent actions demonstrated that the president doesn’t read.  He once denied on national TV that his minister of petroleum had gone to court to stop the House of Representatives from probing her.  This was after the media published many reports of the minister’s action.
Also, he denied that there was a rigging tape from Ekiti.  It’s a fabrication, he told the Wall Street Journal.  That was after several reports suggesting independent verification and authentication of the audio tape.
Only last Saturday, during the elections, the president denied there were bombings; again, after many reports on the incident.  
Therefore, if he doesn’t read, how could he understand that one idea from a book can create thousands of jobs?
This book problem is only one demonstration of how Jonathan messed up our economy.  The 52 books we bought were for a training.  Thus, if we factored in the over sixty percent tariff, the client would have had to pay more.  And they in turn would increase the prices of their services and pass them unto the customers and the customer would also have to adjust some of their economic activities – some of which would involve price increases.  
You see how one ill-advised policy makes us all worse off?
President Jonathan has assaulted our economy in such a way that history would bleed at its telling. And he’s no good luck, he’s bad luck – very bad.  
I feel that for a leader to lead his country to an economic development, he must embody three attributes: knowledge, political will and patriotism.  President Jonathan, unfortunately, has none of these.
Accordingly, Nigerian leaders after him must fashion a deliberate plan to raise both entrepreneurs and the middle class by enacting policies different from the shenanigans of Jonathan.  For entrepreneurs, it’s difficult to do business in Nigeria.  The taxes are too many and too high, to say nothing of the absence of basic infrastructure.  No wonder many businesses leave Nigeria for neighboring countries such as Ghana.
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