BY CHIEF LAWSON A. OMOKHODION.
The drums of the 2015 Presidential
elections have been sounding since December 2014. By March 28 the people would
speak. While PDP’s President Jonathan is
running on its records of the past five years, the APC candidate General
Muhammadu Buhari is running on his promises to the electorate. Anyhow, a new
government would be sworn-in on May 29. Watchers of the Nigerian economy are wondering
what is going on particularly when all senior federal government officials have
relocated to their states of origin for politics. But what will the Finance
Minister and Co-ordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and
her team tell the world about the economic successes of President Jonathan?
That the economy suddenly fell apart one year after rebasing the GDP? That the federal executive council weekly
meetings only approve projects that are never funded? That policies are not
discussed at the council? Many questions to answer but it must resist the
temptation of being carried away by the digitally re-mastered pictorial
depiction of phenomenal achievements by a federal government that is now so
adept at propaganda and deception. Aside the issues of corruption and
insecurity it is time to discuss government duties, obligations and responsibilities
to guarantee citizens’ socio-economic rights.
Okonjo-Iweala must worry why fuel
importation is a key result area of the economy she manages? The last time on TV she was explaining
payments to fuel importers and why there would be no fuel scarcity. In fact in
the past six months the government has paid estimated $6billion (six billion
dollars) for fuel importation. Okonjo-Iweala must feel so ashamed that as an
economist her government cannot take advantage of the nation’s natural resource
endowment in crude oil to grow the economy. Over three and half years after the
2012 fuel subsidy crisis, Ngozi’s federal economy has no new petroleum refinery
in sight and the existing ones continue to operate at 18% of capacity. Jobs
lost in their thousands! At the last count Nigeria’s OPEC quota of 2.3 million
barrels per day is undermined by both oil theft of 400,000 barrels per day and
inability to generate sales. Yet the 480,000 daily barrels of crude oil that
could have been refined locally are replaced by imported fuel. Ngozi and the
federal government place their hope on the fact that the Aliko Dangote’s
refinery will be ready in 2017 as if Dangote is synonymous with the federal
government. What will Ngozi tell her
World Bank colleagues that has made Nigeria so dependent on imports on every
aspect of its life? Import of furniture items? Import of kerosene stoves? Has Ngozi read the
goals and lessons of the structural adjustment programme of 1986? As a world
bank trained economist why no long-term development planning agenda that guides
the economy she is co-ordinating? Will this economy continue to dwell in the zone
of disaster once again as from May 29?
Does this economy know how much it loses to
OECD countries on annual foreign educational pursuits by students and medical
tourism by the rich? Nigerians annually troop to the UK, Canada, USA, Switzerland,
Dubai and others for quality university education. It costs a minimum of six
million naira annually for undergraduate tuition and board in the UK. There are
over 5000 Nigerian students in UK universities. Some students go to Benin
republic and Ghana to receive university education in both good and inferior
institutions. Students do go to India for university education, a country that
was nowhere in the 1970s. In Nigeria none of its about 150 universities is
rated amongst the first 1000 universities in the world. A country where both federal
and state government owned universities cannot boast of proper toilet
facilities for its hostel students. In Nigeria’s public universities, the inadequacy
of both halls of residence, classrooms and lecture theatres negate the
existence of these institutions. In the past 5 years the federal government
alone has set up nearly 20 universities without even a study to ascertain the
type of education and skills needed by the national economy. Yet these
universities must produce good quality graduates for the economy and pronounce
them fit both in learning and character. Why will a federal government not
achieve excellence in academics and infrastructure in 10 selected universities
in 5 years? In 16 years? If there are 10 world class universities in Nigeria most
of the students who fly to the UK, Canada and USA for university education will
remain at home to school and conserve the nation’s scarce foreign exchange. Does
Ngozi know that as Co-ordinating Minister for the Economy she must be
concerned? Does Ngozi know that job creation in this economy is her number one
priority? A country where nine out of every 10 graduates are unemployed
confirms that the economic policies have failed. Job creation is beyond
ventures like Sure-P; You-win; graduate internship programme for 20,000 youths,
or agropreneur programmes for 5000 youths in an environment where well over 25
million youths are daily searching for jobs. The Nigerian youths are debased
and dehumanised by joblessness. What is the desirable annual unemployment rate
that Ngozi and her colleagues target? How come federal government institutions
like PRODA and FIIRO cannot be reorganised, funded, and engineered to achieve
breakthroughs in the Nigerian manufacturing world to create jobs, products and
services? Why must national initiatives in local raw materials conversion
programmes of yesteryears wither away?
The multi-billion dollar cost of medical
tourism in Europe, America and India is another drain pipe on the nation’s
resources. How can a finance minister watch helplessly as billions of dollars
are moved by patients seeking medical treatment abroad? Yet a strategic
analysis of the environment would have pushed the federal government to singly
or in partnership remodel a few existing teaching hospitals into world class
hospitals making provisions for a no strike contract. Basic health challenges
that nurses and assistants handle in Europe and America lead to instant death
in Nigeria. Infant and Children and maternal mortality remain common place.
Killer high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke and hospitals have no CT
Scans, no MRI, no dialysis machines, no defibrillator, no reagents, no cancer
treatment machines and yet there is a federal government. Equipment are not
available and trained doctors have all left in frustration leaving behind only
the sympathetic ones ready to help us through the domestic medical rot. By the
time the Central Bank of Nigeria releases foreign exchange for fuel
importation, approve foreign exchange for payment of foreign school fees, and
basic travel allowance and disburses funds and business travel allowance for
sick Nigerians going abroad for medical treatment little wonder that the
nation’s foreign reserves can hardly hold its ground. With the international
oil market gone soft the outlook for the local foreign exchange market is now dismal
and horrendous.
The government must blame itself for
allowing the exchange rate to break through the psychological threshold of N200/$
and now trading at N200/$ open market and N198/$ CBN. An economy where such a
massive devaluation of its currency has taken place and yet the interest rate
on loans and advances is an average of 27% pa is not serious about economic
survival. Will Ngozi say that the fundamentals of the Nigerian economy as they
stand today do credit to President Jonathan’s government? Since the second tier
foreign exchange market of1986 the present experience has been the most
traumatic. When businesses borrow they must pay back otherwise they come in
conflict with the banks. Repeated bank loses on such transactions does not
augur well for the economy. When banks collapse it is on account of the
debilitating effects of bad loans on their shareholders’ funds. The small and
medium sized businesses in the country cannot survive on an interest rate of
27%pa. The large scale industries cannot survive for much longer on both an
interest rate of 27%pa and an exchange rate of either N198/$ or N220/$. The
outlook is that the Nigerian economy is on a free fall. This delicate period
has been compounded by an election where no rules are obeyed. All the ministers
now play politics. The result is that confidence has left the economy and
investors both local and foreign are adopting a wait and see attitude. The
daily stock market price losses and decline in market capitalisation indicate
that the economy is in turmoil but neither Okonjo-Iweala nor her colleagues
know what to do.
It is instructive how the country has been
allowed to go to the dogs in such a short time.
Senior federal government officials tell lies so freely. The Agriculture
Minister Dr Adesina has extolled cassava bread but tried as I have there is no
one loaf of cassava bread in sight. So where is Cassava bread? Similarly, the
Agriculture Minister told the nation that several rice mills have been
commissioned and notably in Abakaliki. And yet all my efforts to buy a bag of Adesina
rice have failed. Many federal ministers are strangers to the Nigerian
environment. Like Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala the agriculture minister is of the OECD
stalk; a stranger in the land. If Dr Adesina knew better he would know that the
only way to successfully transform agriculture in Nigeria was to reorganise the
commodity boards and re-establish the Nigerian palm produce board; the Nigerian
rubber board; the Nigerian Grains board; the Nigerian cotton board; the
Nigerian cocoa board and create a new one called the Nigerian rice board. Many
federal ministers have no sense of Nigeria’s economic history. The result has
been a catastrophic failure and destructive economic agenda by strangers hired
from western institutions to run critical arms of government. May be Trade and
Investment minister Olusegun Aganga’s made-in-Nigeria Toyota cars may roll out
soon.
Whenever I see Professor Nebo the Power
Minister on national TV I feel very sorry for him. The reason is that he has
tried every known trick in the books to convince Nigerians that 4,000 megawatts
is a good buy for the well over $35billion poured into electricity supply and
generation by the PDP government in the past 15 years. When Professor Nebo is
not bemoaning gas pipe lines vandalization, he is crying over transmission
lines. Yet no report is heard of gas explosion as a result of pipeline
vandalization. If indeed a gas pipeline is vandalized the resultant fire
outburst will be catastrophic. Recently, the Central Bank of Nigeria offered a soft
loan of N213 billion to the gencos and discos that bought the assets of the
power holding company of Nigeria. This massive loan is being disbursed through
commercial banks. If past experience is anything to go by, this loan will go
the way the aviation and textile intervention funds went. Meanwhile, Professor
Nebo is confused as he knows there is no public electricity in the country. Too
many fundamental questions need to be answered by federal ministers. Tons of
presidential goodwill wasted. Fuel subsidies’ frauds unresolved? The docile
EFCC and ICPC have made embezzlement of public funds such an easy past time. Why
is impunity our guiding principle? The next President must apply a new strategy.
We must change how things run in this country. Let Buhari run Nigeria!
*Chief
Omokhodion was the Managing Director/CEO of Liberty Bank Plc.
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