Despite the positive outlook in the economy as indicated in the rise in the nation’s foreign reserves and other pointers, the jury’s still out on the true state of the economy, writes Ibrahim Apekhade Yusuf
One area the President Muhammadu Buhari government has faced public scrutiny lately is in the area of the economy. This is because a lot rides and depends on the state of the economy. It goes without saying that the wheel of the governance can either grind fast or slowly depending on the direction of the economic managers.
With the benefit of hindsight, not many economic watchers are convinced that the Buhari administration has attained any lofty heights as far as economic growth is concerned.
To many of these analysts, there have been few promises kept but a lot of promises broken and even promises ignored outright as the Buhari-led government enters the last year of its first term.
Speaking with a cross-section of Nigerians drawn from different walks of life, they argued matter-of-factly that things are not the way they should be. In one word, the economy is in a parlous state.
Firing the first salvo, Henry Boyo, renowned economist and social commentator in an interview with our correspondent said Nigerians are suffering a lot of privations more than they are willing to admit.
According to Boyo, one way to understand the true picture of the level of poverty in the system is to examine the purchasing power of the average man on the streets.
“The reality is that the Nigerian citizen has become much poorer. Incidentally, the basic driver of this social poverty can be traced to the shenanigans they’ve in the forex market. It’s a market where the Central Bank itself consciously and deliberately inundates the market with excess and surplus naira, which it proceeds to borrow at 10-16 per cent as the case may be.”
Reminded that the federal government also launched what was thought to be a vehicle to drive its economic agenda in the form of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), the Itsekiri-born technocrat pointedly jeered at the whole idea.
“If you want to believe that it’s up to you. I have told you the truth. What you’re asking me to talk about doesn’t mean anything. Has it impacted in your life? Do you even understand what it means? Somebody is taking your money or the treasurer of your purse is borrowing money he doesn’t need and storing it away at 15 per cent and you yourself is looking for money to borrow and he says you should go and borrow from elsewhere and you don’t think that is serious enough? You’re talking of the ERGP which you yourself don’t understand. It’s a case of the more you look the less you see.”
Echoing similar sentiments, Austin Okere is Founder and Chief Executive Officer Computer Warehouse Group Plc, while assessing the impact or otherwise of the ERGP said at the centre of the leadership crisis is the issue of lack of sincerity of purpose.
“I think the problem we have is that we run election economics. Great men think about the next generation but politicians think about the next election. And insofar as the economy is about amassing enough money to manoeuvre or win the elections by all means, then another four years, we go back to the same square, then if a new government comes in, it starts exposing saying oh, look at the money that was amassed and they say it was for election and say, ok.”
Pressed further, Okere, who also sits atop as the Founder and Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Ausso Leadership Academy, said regrettably, “In an election year, a lot of time and resources are wasted. So we only have two productive years and if you’re not lucky, the new government comes and rollback everything that has been achieved, it becomes a problem. I didn’t use to see a lot of refuse in Lagos but now there’s refuse everywhere. So what did the past government did right and what are we discontinuing that should be continued? These are pertinent questions we need to address at every point in time. In any case, it’s the same party. So there’s a problem somewhere.”
In a statement issued by the National Publicity Secretary of Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN), Chinedu Bosah and made available to The Nation, noted that the government has failed to achieve the three cardinal programmes thus far.
Specifically, Bosah said: “On the economy, President Buhari government has also failed woefully. Living conditions of most Nigerians are much worse now than three years ago as a result of the anti-poor policies of the regime. Education is still underfunded and Nigeria has the highest number of out-of-school children in the world that stands at 10.5 million. The government is increasingly commercializing education by periodic hike in fees at the tertiary level and more students are forced out of school. The budgetary allocation to education is about 7% which is criminally inadequate.”
On the heartening news that the nation’s foreign reserve stands at $47.5 billion, the rights activist said this was not an ingenious move after all.
“Unfortunately, the President reduced food security to increased local production of rice. Most of the rice consumed in Nigeria is still being imported. The Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development said that Nigeria spends about $22billion (N6.7 trillion) annually on food importation and yet the proposed budgetary allocation to Agriculture and Rural Development is a paltry N119 billion.”
On power, he said: “The President applauded his government for generating 7,500 MW of electricity but what he did not tell us is that over $20 billion public funds has been investment in the power sector in the last 15 years. Besides, due to the poor transmission and distribution infrastructure and facilities only less than two-third of the generated MW are eventually supplied to consumers. Fundamentally, 7,500 MW is very small for a population of 180 million people. The President did not address the very vexatious issue of widespread unwarranted and outrageous estimated bills issued to consumers by the Distribution Companies which is a rip-off. Besides, he has stuck with the electricity privatisation, which has proved to be a monumental failure.”
However, in the view of Omooba Olumuyiwa Shosanya, founding father of Association of National Accountant of Nigeria (ANAN), there is a lot to cheer about in the President Buhari administration.
The technocrat who was a member of the think tank that designed the manifesto of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) recalled that the government came into the being when the situation was really rotten for the country.
Waxing philosophical, he said: “It’s like someone who bought a house that was built on a swamp. He has two choices: either he continues to improve on that house which is already sinking or he can decide that the proper thing to do is to demolish the house and have a solid foundation because if he tries to manage the house as it is, the house will eventually sink. But what the government has done since it came in was that it met a house that was already sinking and what it had to do was to demolish and then build. And when you’re building on a swamp, you need a solid foundation. This is what this government has been doing. And right now, if you’re using the terminology of a builder, the house has left the level of foundation to lintel level. And it’s solid.
On a ratio of 0-100%, the financial expert said, he would score the government 60%. “I score this government 60% and I think 60% is very good in an examination, it’s more than average. So in my own opinion, this performance has given this government a return ticket. They’ve the ticket and the boarding pass; they’re just waiting to catch their flights. All the other political parties are just wasting their time. Left to any other political party in this country, this country would have been in liquidation. So we must thank President Muhammadu Buhari for a job well done.”
Government speaks
Expectedly Mr. Femi Adesina, Special Adviser to the President (Media and Publicity) in a statement outlined key achievements accomplished so far by the administration.
In the statement titled, ‘The Economy: Facts Are Stubborn Things,’ the President’s media minder while lamenting the fact that some people have made it a pastime to deride the government, however said there is a lot to cheer about.
Citing the recent report of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Adesina said: “The economy has recovered from the slow-down and eventual recession, which started in 2014. There has been improvement with stronger growth for three successive quarters. From contracting by 0.91% in Q1 2017, the economy has grown by 0.72% in Q2 2017, to 1.17% in Q3 2017, and 2.11% in Q4 2017. The Q1 2018 GDP shows that the economy has recorded a GDP growth of 1.95%, compared to a contraction of 0.91% in Q1 2017.”
Besides, he said, the growth was driven largely by agriculture and industry. “The Nigerian economy is on the road to diversification. The oil sector’s contribution to GDP is 9.61%, while non-oil sector’s share is 90.39%. One of the factors responsible for the positive performance of the economy in Q1 2018 was the spending of about N1.5 trillion on infrastructure projects in 2017. For the past 15 months, inflation has declined consistently from 18.72% to 12.48%. The country is steadily on the road to single digit inflation rate.”
Expatiating, Adesina said: “The first quarter of 2018 saw a continuous growth in total capital importation into the country, the fourth consecutive quarterly increase since Q2 2017. The total value of capital imported is $6,303.63 million, a 17.11% growth over the figure reported in the previous quarter.
Foreign reserves stand at $47.79 billion, compared to $29.6 billion inherited in May 2015, after about six years boom in oil prices in the international market. The increase came at a time of modest oil prices, showing transparency and accountability by government.
Nigeria’s Stock Market ended 2017 as one of the best-performing in the world, with returns of about 40 percent just as tax revenue increased to N1.17 trillion, in Q1 2018, a 51% increase on the Q1 2017 figure. Milled rice production has increased from 2.5MT to 4MT, and rice imports have dropped from 580,000MT in 2015 to 58,000MT in 2016. Millions of dollars have been saved, he stressed.
