It was a business lunch by a group of investors who had eagerly been
\nwaiting for information about the business climate in Nigeria. But their
\nguest, top official of a multinational banking and financial services
\ncompany, who had spent a week in Lagos and Abuja before returning to the
\nUnited Kingdom, was evidently in no hurry as she sipped her drink. After a
\nwhile, she looked in the direction of one of the four men at the table and
\nsaid, \u201cIf I say 1 and 2 is equal to 12 what will 2 and 3 be?\u201d The man did
\nnot need to think twice before he responded: \u201cThe answer of course is 23.\u201d<\/p>\n
Please put me in your prayers\u2026<\/p>\n
I will soon be going for eye surgery\u2026<\/p>\n
The situation is getting out of hand\u2026<\/p>\n
For more than two months now\u2026<\/p>\n
Anytime I look inside my wallet\u2026<\/p>\n
I hardly see anything again.<\/p>\n
\u2014A distressed Nigerian<\/p>\n
Shaking her head, the lady replied: \u201cYou are wrong, the answer is 5\u201d.
\nBefore the obviously confused men in the room could react to such
\nalgebraic manipulation, the lady posed another question. \u201cWhat if I join 3
\nand 7, what would that give me?\u201d<\/p>\n
This time, the man decided to hedge his bet: \u201cThe answer will either be 10
\nor 37\u201d.<\/p>\n
Smiling, the lady responded: \u201cYou are wrong again. The answer is 21.\u201d And
\nthen she added the clincher: \u201cThat is the best way to describe what is
\ngoing on within the Nigerian economy today where all the variables are up
\nin the air. The only thing that is predictable now is the
\nunpredictability.\u201d<\/p>\n
The foregoing conversation, which I learnt on good authority, took place
\nabout two weeks ago in a high-class London restaurant, tells a compelling
\nstory. But we need no foreigner to tell us how tough the season is since
\nwe live it every day; even though Nigerians may have learnt to laugh at
\ntheir problems, as can be glimpsed from the \u201cpoem\u201d with which I opened the
\npage.<\/p>\n
To be sure, President Muhammadu Buhari is not the cause of our woes, as
\nmost of the problems predated his administration. However, some of the
\nchoices he has made (or refused to make) have compounded the situation
\nwhile there are no visible signs in the horizon that things would get
\nbetter any time soon. If anything, there are fears that things could
\nactually get worse, unless he makes a course correction in his approach to
\nserious issues of governance.<\/p>\n
President Buhari was in Qatar in February this year, seeking investible
\nfunds. I understand the Qatari authorities requested that he quickly
\nappoint the Nigerian ambassador to Qatar, someone with sufficient clout
\nand authority to represent our country so that a productive conversation
\ncould begin. Five months after, such a simple task is yet to be
\naccomplished. In fact, as at today, Nigeria has no ambassador to any
\ncountry, not even to traditional allies like the United Kingdom or the
\nUnited States.<\/p>\n
More than a year after dissolving the statutory boards of regulatory
\ninstitutions that are critical to the economy, they are yet to be
\nreconstituted. From the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to the Nigerian
\nElectricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to the Bank of Industry (BOI) to
\nthe Nigeria Investment Promotion Council (NIPC) to the Security and
\nExchange Commission (SEC) to the Nigerian Export promotion Council (NEPC)
\nto the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Commission (NDIC) to the Sovereign
\nWealth Fund (SWF) to the Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC) etc. there
\nare no boards. Some of these institutions do not even have substantive
\nChief Executives. Against the background that barely 24 hours after she
\nbecame the British Prime Minister last week, Mrs. Theresa May named her
\nentire cabinet, you wonder why our leaders find it so difficult to do the
\nlittle things that matter.<\/p>\n
The office of the Chief Economic Adviser (which has a full complement of
\nstaff, including some with doctorate degrees) is still vacant apparently
\nbecause Aso Rock does not need advice on economic matters. Meanwhile, the
\npresident makes pronouncements which suggest he dictates both monetary and
\nfiscal policies from the Villa, leaving investors wondering about the
\nindependence of critical institutions like the CBN. If political
\nconsiderations (including nostalgia about some imaginary past) rather than
\nsound economic judgments determine policy direction, which rational
\ninvestor would want to risk his\/her money in such an economy?<\/p>\n
Speaking at the Ramadan breaking of fast with members of the business
\ncommunity last month, the president condemned what he described as \u201cthe
\nruthless devaluation of naira,\u2019\u2019 saying that he was yet to be convinced
\nabout the justification for it. \u201cI don\u2019t like the returns I get from the
\nCBN\u2026In August 1985, the naira was N1.3k to a dollar, now you need N300 or
\nN350 to a dollar. I\u2019m neither an economist nor a businessman (but) I fail
\nto appreciate the economic explanation\u201d said the president who
\nincidentally provided the answer to a question he claimed not to
\nunderstand: \u201cWhat has happened to us now is that we have maneuvered
\nourselves into a mono-economy which led to the collapse we are seeing
\nnow.\u201d<\/p>\n
That, Mr. President, is precisely the point. The wrong choices we have
\nmade over the years landed us in this position but what we need right now
\nare solutions to problems that are already getting out of hand. On Monday,
\nthe UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
\ncategorised the North-eastern part of our country as severely food
\ninsecure. \u201cThis is about as bad as it gets. There\u2019s only one step worse
\nand I\u2019ve not come across that situation in 20 years of doing this work and
\nthat\u2019s a famine. We have to step in and quickly or we are going to have
\nhundreds of thousands at risk of dying in the north-east of Nigeria\u201d said
\nToby Lanzer, UN assistant secretary general and OCHA\u2019s regional
\nhumanitarian coordinator for the Sahel.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, this challenge is not restricted to the North-east since
\nhunger has become a national staple across the country as confirmed
\nyesterday by the Minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Chief Audu
\nOgbeh. With majority of the states owing their workers, some for as many
\nas six months, the situation in Nigeria today is very dire. And while the
\nBuhari administration should be commended for its social intervention
\ninitiative, it is also obvious that we need a more robust agenda to
\nreposition the economy away from oil.<\/p>\n
For instance, in the ranking of states by the 2015 Internally Generated
\nRevenues compared to the total receivables from the Federation Account
\nAllocation between June 2015 and May 2016 done by the Economic
\nConfidential, only three states (Lagos, Rivers and Ogun) internally
\ngenerated above 50 percent of what they received from Abuja. 17 states
\ngenerated less than 10 percent of their receivables from Abuja; another
\neight generated between 10 and 14 percent while the remaining eight
\ngenerated between 15 and 30 percent.<\/p>\n
This is a clear state of emergency situation that will take more than some
\nepisodic financial bail-outs or ad hoc solutions to deal with. It is a
\nsituation that requires the president providing a national platform for
\ndiscussing the way out in a more sustainable manner at a period inflation
\nis soaring while businesses are either closing down or sacking workers. So
\nbleak is the outlook that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which in
\nApril, just three months ago, predicted a 2.3 per cent expansion in the
\nNigerian economy, on Tuesday slashed its growth forecast, saying the
\ncombination of plunging oil revenue and weakened investor confidence would
\nmost likely push it into recession. The IMF now expects the economy to
\ncontract by 1.8 per cent this year. But what is the response from the
\nadministration?<\/p>\n
At a most delicate period when there is an overflow of issues that require
\nlegislative input, the presidency and the National Assembly are merely
\ntolerating one another. More depressing is the news that our lawmakers
\nhave just voted for themselves a two-month holiday at a time of national
\neconomic crisis. But what do you expect when the only notable contribution
\nto national discourse by some of our \u201cdistinguished\u201d Senators is that a
\nfemale colleague has reached \u201cmenopause\u201d?<\/p>\n
Perhaps we should not be too hard on the lawmakers since the executive has
\nnot come up with any legislative initiative that requires their urgent
\nattention. \u201cI have, at least on three different occasions publicly
\nrequested the executive to, as a matter of urgency, send an executive bill
\non its intended reforms in the petroleum sector. We had hoped to avoid the
\nsituation in the past two assemblies (6th and 7th) where the PIB was sent
\nto the National Assembly very late thereby guaranteeing failure to pass
\nthe bill\u201d said the House of Representatives\u2019 Speaker, Hon Yakubu Dogara,
\non Monday as he lamented a lack of urgency by the presidency in reforming
\nthe oil and gas sector.<\/p>\n
While no objective person will blame President Buhari alone for the
\neconomic challenge we face today as a nation, many Nigerians nonetheless
\nbelieve things do not have to remain the way they are. According to Dr.
\nAminu Usman, a lecturer in the Department of Economics, Kaduna State
\nUniversity, \u201cthe government can do better by coming up with clearly
\ndefined policies for each sector of the economy and move from wish list to
\nthe actual work of getting things done.\u201d On a lighter mood, a friend
\nsuggested yesterday that, against the background of the current
\ncontroversy in the Senate, the economy may also be going through the
\ndifficulty of being \u201cimpregnated\u201d with fresh ideas!<\/p>\n
With high incidence of unemployment, aging public infrastructure and a
\nnear-useless power sector that generates (for officials) only megawatts of
\nexcuses at a period the Niger Delta Avengers are daily wreaking havoc on
\noil and gas installations, there are three major issues begging for
\nattention: Significant revenue shortfall from practically all sources;
\npotential credit crisis because AMCON is already over leveraged and a
\nseemingly intractable foreign exchange crisis that has shaken market
\nconfidence. To address these fundamental problems, it stands to reason
\nthat we need a serious economic management team but President Buhari still
\ndoes not see any need for that.<\/p>\n
Sadly, after a year spent blaming others, we are yet to see the economic
\ndirection of the Buhari administration or the policies and ideas that can
\npossibly justify the endless aspersions on the past. Yet, whether his
\nhandlers realize it or not, this presidency will be judged not by how bad
\na leader Dr. Goodluck Jonathan was but by how much of a better leader he
\n(Buhari) ends up to be.<\/p>\n
In a four year presidential term, the first year is perhaps the maximum
\ntime allowed an incumbent to heap all blames on his predecessors. After
\nthat, he must take responsibility. Therefore, President Buhari can only
\nimprint his legacy either in terms of his firm handling of the
\ncontemporary economic challenges or through the efficiency of the
\nmachinery of government he puts in place. As things stand today, a
\npresident who came to office with overwhelming public support may have
\nworsened the problems he inherited, leaving the economy on the brink of
\nrecession.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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