Thursday, September 29,
2016
That Nigerians have
been facing difficult economic challenges and headwinds beyond the ordinary
calls for pity, lamentation and above all, concerted efforts by those who
manage the economy at reversing the trend. Major economic indicators point to
severe erosion of purchasing power of ordinary Nigerians with fast depreciating
currency, now at N445 to the Dollar in the parallel market, rising interest
rates, galloping inflation, unemployment, and misery index. Life is just
extremely hard for the people.
Economic growth has
decelerated from 6.4% in 2014 through 2.7 per cent in 2015 to -2.06% in second
quarter of 2016. It is further projected that Nigeria's projected average
growth rate of four per cent between 2017 and 2020 would still be below the
rate recorded in 2014.
The difficult economic
situation has been attributed to several factors, including falling oil prices
and cut in oil production. Delays in government's response especially, with the
presentation and approval of 2016 budget and spending plans have also
contributed. The lack of fiscal buffers, structural constraints, and fuel,
electricity, and foreign exchange scarcities further compounded economic
difficulties being experienced by Nigerians.
There appears to be no
easy short-cuts for policy makers to deal with the economic challenges and
headwinds. But this country cannot help it by observing that the present
administration appears rudderless with a lack of overarching economic vision
and philosophy, which explains its knee-jerk reactions to ideas from the left
and those from the right and in disjointed and uncoordinated approaches between
the fiscal and monetary sides.
The administration
appears to be caught in the middle of an economic class warfare between the
poor masses and the few members of the elite and oligarchs who have cornered
the commanding heights of the economy in banking, telecommunications, and
industrial sectors and whose insatiable appetite as economic predators is now
making them champion the sale of national assets which they can buy for the
cheap in collusion with members of the political class who have amassed stolen
wealth.
This is not the time to
despair in the midst of recession and not a time to succumb to economic
predators, but to demonstrate political leadership at the highest level. To use
the words of former U.S. President Bill Clinton in his first inaugural speech
in 1993, we are in the depth of winter, but we must force the spring.
A spring reborn in
Africa's largest economy and democracy must bring forth the vision to reinvent
Nigeria and galvanise its citizens. This should start with overcoming the
current visionless and rudderless economic leadership in the country, with its
lack of overarching economic philosophy. The administration now more than ever
needs to show political leadership by clearly articulating its economic vision
and effectively communicating it to Nigerians.
As this newspaper has
espoused before, there is still need for rolling development plans,
articulating strategies, policies, programmes, projects and financing
requirements as well as their sources to tackle the productive sectors of
agriculture, manufacturing, and mining, and also power and transportation
infrastructure deficits.
Moving from the
rhetoric about economic recession to shared and sustained prosperity requires a
clear and consistent focus on people, who are at the heart of and should be the
primary beneficiaries of socio-economic development. A people-driven
development is still missing in the discourse on getting out of recession.
While the focus has been on the Federal Government to bail the economy out of
recession, people-driven development should be embraced at the state government
and local community levels, which ties in with the urgent need for more
devolution of power and resources.
All Nigerians know
enough why Nigeria is not working. Now is the time to let the country work.
There has been enough jamboree of conferences and seminars. The President, the
economic management team, the National Assembly and state governments should
seize the moment. We must harvest from these bad times and learn from it. We
must prevent the current economic recession from turning into an economic
depression. Nigeria must force an economic spring from the depth of this cold
horrible winter.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN