President Buhari ought to have shed more light on his economic revival plans at economic summit
THERE was not a more opportune moment like last Monday for the Buhari government to lay bare its key economic policies. It was the much advertised 22nd Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja where the nation’s economy was the repast served much abundantly. And everyone who mattered in Nigeria’s economy and business was present, perhaps in anticipation that President Muhammadu Buhari, the special guest, would afford them some insight on the economy.
But going by the reports from the occasion, the president disappointed. His Minister of Budget and National Planning, Sen. Udo Udoma, who also spoke mulched the moment too.
Hear the president: “My greatest desire is that Nigeria moves from import-dependence to sufficiency in local production and become an export-led economy in goods and services.” He said that a return to the consumption of made-in-Nigeria goods is at the heart of his administration’s economic policies and that the economy would be diversified so that it would never have to depend on a single commodity any longer.
“Fortunately, we have champions of made-in-Nigeria products that have defied the odds over the years to produce locally and contribute to our economy.” This administration, he said further, was committed to improving the ease of doing business, changing negative attitudes to local products and promoting exports.
Sen. Udoma on his part merely charged members of the organised private sector to take the front seat in repositioning the economy.
These two speeches may well give fillip to the assertion by many that the government has not yet drawn up an economic blueprint or a roadmap. And those who say government has only been paying lip-service to the question of diversification may well enjoy some vindication here.
Though trite, we must not tire to state that the natural economic policy presenting itself to the country now is the need for aggressive diversification through agro-economy. First, we need to urgently achieve self-sufficiency in food production and second, acquire capacity in some key agro-based exportable industrial raw materials. We expect the government to attack the current recession through this two-pronged approach.
Among the local staples are rice, beans, vegetable oils, poultry products, tomato paste, milk, beef and fish. All of these are still being imported at huge drain to foreign exchange and strain on the economy. The products with huge export potentials are cocoa, palm oil products, cotton, shea butter, among others. Each of these commodities is imbued with a long value chain that is in itself, a huge industry and job-maker. These would represent immediate-to-medium term efforts.
The other component in revamping the economy would include accelerating work on power projects, refineries and petrochemical projects and catalysing the rebuilding of industrial capacity, to name a few.
What we expect at auspicious occasions like this gathering of Nigeria’s economic gurus would be a detailed espousal of some of the measures by this administration in this regard. It has indeed become imperative that the government must be more forthcoming with details of the measures it is applying to return the economy to the path of recovery and growth.
Most of these are urgent measures we expect the economic team to brainstorm over and come up with action plans and critical milestones. For instance, some of the banned items can be targeted for local production with government helping to catalyse such simple start-up processes.
Just as the World Bank chided recently, the government is yet to roll up its sleeves and get to work. Report from a recent African Growth Opportunities Act (AGOA) function in Washington DC, USA, shows Nigeria was conspicuously absent among African countries. This is a major window for non-oil commodities export to US’ market.
India at a point in her development had to establish a central plant and machinery depot for ease of access to local manufacturers.
All thriving economies are carefully planned and methodically driven; it never happens by chance or by mouthing platitude.