How to worsen a recession!

The inactions and actions of contemporary policy and governance led us straight into an economic recession (as I predicted!). We may now focus on policy to enable economic recovery or we may continue to blame the government which left office fifteen months ago! If we choose the latter, as some people in Abuja and their agents in the media seek to do, I offer some additional tips on how to make an economic recession worse!

1 Do not admit you are in recession: One step a government might take if it seeks to deepen or worsen an economic recession is to refuse to admit that the economy is in recession. You may delay release of relevant economic data; or even fiddle with data to deny the economy is in recession. Everyone would of course recognize you are lying and soon no one will believe whatever data you release! That would compound your problem and sooner than later, worsen your economic prospects.
2 Do not have a strong and decisive plan to get out of recession: Continue to speak platitudes about economic policy. Call for patriotism and nationalism without presenting the people with a clear, comprehensive and compelling economic plan they can buy into. Focus on other issues, other than the economy. You may give away scarce national resources to Muslim or Christian pilgrims; or you could continue to focus all your mental energies on sustaining a seventeenth century system of agricultural livestock rearing. Do anything except focus on revitalizing a 21st century economy that is struggling for life!

3 Do not make mandatory personnel changes! When economic managers or policy makers have lost credibility with markets and investors, the first step to economic recovery may be to change them. If you want a long recessionary or low growth period, the best way to stay in recession is to stick to the officials, who helped you get there!

4 Do not diagnose correctly what and how you got into recession: Another important step is to lie to yourself about how you got into recession! Your non-appointment of a cabinet for seven months had nothing to do with it; the absence of economic advisers played no part; the archaic policies you pursued for one year in respect of foreign currency and downstream petroleum did not contribute even when they so obviously choked life out of the economy; even your TSA which sucked blood out of an accident victim and brought the financial sector to its knees played no part. The fact that even now, there is no clarity about economic policy and governance, and certainly no discernible sense of emergency around economic recovery plays no part. Continue to tell yourself that the policies of the last 16 years (when the economy grew at an average of 6%) caused the recession. Then all will be fine!

5 Make statements that discomfit the market: You can impose a hefty and outrageous fine on your largest telecommunications player. When you sort that out, you can get your NSA and agriculture minister to threaten to shut down your two largest fertilizer and petrochemical companies. Then your favourite governor can seek to legislate interest rates and your labour minister can warn struggling banks against laying off workers. When you eventually agree to liberalise your currency, you can inform global investors that you were forced into that line of action and you remain unconvinced it is sensible policy! Don’t worry your media managers can pay off journalists to restate that the former government caused the recession!

6 This may sound repetitious but make sure you don’t make economic recovery a priority: For one, do not appoint any economist into your cabinet! And don’t appoint an economic adviser or council of economic advisers. Let “gbatueyo” economists stumble from one inanity to another! As for you, concentrate on appointments, nepotistic appointments, grazing routes, reserves or grazing “ranches”, subsidies on pilgrimages, Shiites, Biafrans and Avengers and traveling!

7 Shun private capital! Focus your search for economic stimulus only on debt (in spite of the fact that you already spend 25% of your budget (and 40% of your revenue) on servicing debts. Ignore foreign and domestic investors and do not accept any policy that puts the private sector in a strong position.

8 Retain your old paradigm-[/b]it’s all about oil: While you mouth the phrase “diversification” let your actions show that all you’re doing is praying for oil prices to rise!!! Appoint yourself minister for petroleum; maneuver until the “right” person is in charge of NNPC; order for oil exploration in the Chad Basin, no matter what; appoint your closest aides into the board of the national oil company; …do whatever you can to ensure you and your “friends” control the oil industry!

9 [b]Do not take decisions-[/b]postpone the problem, lament why it is under your regime that oil prices fell this low, complain about the past, blame everyone else…and do nothing. God will revive the economy whenever he wants!

10 [b]Finally please play politics with the economy! Allocate economic portfolios as political patronage and take economic and policy decisions on the basis of regional considerations.

If we follow all these steps, many of which we are already implementing, our long period low growth or recession is assured.

Opeyemi Agbaje

https://businessdayonline.com/how-to-worsen-a-recession/