POLITICS & POLICY:- Open Letter to President M. Buhari on the Recession.

Mr. President Sir,

Few days to your inauguration, l wrote you a letter out of my passions. You would recollect l pointed out some bobby traps that the future might want to create. The specifics mentioned were uproar from the interference in legislative politics; security; and the economy.

I must commend your tactics and its results with regards to the war on the North-Eastern fringe of our nation. Boko Haram bombs and booms are significantly attenuated. Your past military experience had come so handy to buy us this peace. It is my hope that this victory would not be the proverbial peace of the grave yard. I solemnly hope that the now routed Shekau troops would not migrate or be invited back as part of the build up towards the Armageddon of 2019. The statesman in you would surely nor permit that. I put my bets on your patriotism to forbid such evil. Thanks in advance Sir.

Sir, I know matter of fact that you travel through the newspapers columns and online articles about the state of this union called Nigeria. I also presuppose that some clips about the discomfort, agonies and fears about the future, occasioned by the galloping inflation, unemployment rate, devalued naira etc., must have been brought to your notice as you shared your early morning cup of tea with the tabloids, after your prayers. My joy is that the leader in you has not lived in the denial of these, despite attempts by some of your aides and die-hard followers to railroad us into a delusional state of plenty.
Truth is, this nation is worse off than you met it sir. Economic Indices as pumped out by the Bureau of Statistics are real math values. They are non partisan, and they wear no emotional goggles. Naira is 430 to a dollar and a bag of rice is N20, 000. On this economy sir, it is, Res Ipsa Loquitur - the facts speak for themselves!

Sir, I would therefore limit our discourse majorly on the economy.
We are in a recession. You would recollect that you sailed the ship of this nation into that murky waters in 1984 accompanied by your fellow brothers-in-arms. We didn't come out of it until 1996 when your benefactor Sani Abacha held the wheels. This second experience is your greatest test and trial, and the outcome of it would eternally define your legacy, that would begin to count, post 2019 in-sha Allah.

Why this self induced recession sir? I have listened to you harped on its cause being the fallen international oil prices and our looted heritage. So also a lot of commentaries and commenters continuously parody you by flying these lines too. The adduced above resemble the truth. But, in core intellectual circles, nothing can be further from the truth, that is,the constant echoes about fallen crude prices and the sins of Jonathan are twin evils that befell our nation, but not enough reasons to launch us into this gorge. You can check these assertions with the IMF or the World Bank papers on Nigeria sir.

Truly our Brent traded as high as $147 late 2008, but the most immature public policy analyst knew that it was a Christmas Eve that wouldn't last long. And so, even our budgetary benchmark for 2013 - 2014 averaged $65 per barrel. This means, that the National Assembly members were not deceived by the anomalous northward movements of the 2012 -2013 prices. Therefore any government that hinges its performance on windfalls from cyclically and unpredictable risen oil prices should never be taken serious.

So with all respects sir, do not be lured into this darkness sir, meaning if pre-winter sale of crude this past 12 months had averaged at $40 per barrel, l think your presidency is somehow fortunate to be so favoured by current global interplay of the Syria situation that had kept the prices this high. Check the books sir. Olusegun Obasanjo sold for $9 a barrel in 1999 and he shamed our Paris Club Creditors in 2003 after he had sold a few barrels for $45!

So sir, it looks to me sir, that somebody is taking advantage of your ignorance of basic economics tenets, and so this blame game continually resonate. Didn't you have $30 Billion as External Foreign Reserve just few months ago before its depletion by the CBN to shore up the Naira, another big error? You even have an almost untouched $2.4b presently in the Excess Crude Account!
And think of this sir, your tax nets through Customs, FIRS, NPA, etc generate trillions of the local currency able to meet your recurrent expenditure.
See, as at date, you are not owing a single FG worker a month's salary! It means your inflow isn't as bad as you may have been panicked to believe. This posture has been corroborated by no less a person than the Emir of Kano , Sanusi Lamido, in his recent outings. You and I know sir how experienced and knowledgeable His Highness could be! The challenge of your administration is therefore not so much of an emptied treasury, but of paucity of able persons, and workable fiscal and monetary ideas

What then is the crux of this current negative economic growth? How did you sail us again into this bad waters of recession akin to as you did 1983-1984?
Well, if you asked around, you would be told by your supporters pre-2014 election, that l consistently thumped the facts that despite your sincerity and incorruptibility, you and your party the APC looked to me as an unprepared group that would wreck economic havocs on this nation. It's rather unfortunate that my fears then are confirmed exactly within the timeline that was forecasted in my past prognoses.

But sir, I take no delight in rubbing this to your nose, for I feel the pinches of these woes more than you do, definitely. How? My sales are low and my bankers have refused me an all important credit line that would have catapulted my business enterprise because their vaults are almost empty.
Despite my pains however, I am constrained to believe sir, that this is not a season to trade blames. We should join our hands to build a nation were beautiful Zahra Buhari would feel more comfortable to take her now famous selfies, and where my boys dreams and aspirations would be realized without necessarily crossing the Atlantic.

What Should Be Done Now?

1). PEACE TO THE NIGER DELTA.
The infernos in the oil fields and loading terminals have dropped exportable figures from 2.2 million barrels to 700,000 within 18 months! This is the number one cause of this recession and not the $15m inheritance of Patience Jonathan from her grandmother!
Do not listen to anyone bolstering you to buy gun boats on the Niger Delta. Such people are eager to steal your presidency away from you.
Sir, I will tell you a bitter fact I m sure of. If production level drops further down to 200,000 barrels a day or lesser in the months ahead; this government will LITERARILY collapse.
The economic and social consequences are better not imagined here. Banks would die, governors would flee, and the Naira would not only be devalued, it would be used in the toilets! Ask Germany 1946. Ask Zimbabwe 2013. Ask Venezuela 2015.

Sir, I therefore humbly request that you summon the political courage to engage the various interests in the region to bring lasting peace and give your name an enduring economic plaque that the Buharis after you would be proud to display. The same Factors that told GEJ to disdain the BH before the demons overpowered his presidency are the same luring you to war in the creeks. I would to say to you again, don't listen to them. If this Avengers issues escalate to war, it would devastate much more than the Boko Haram.

2). INTERNAL DIPLOMACY.
I must confess that l chuckled when l read your glee about how you got terminated by your subordinates because of your imminent moves against some corrupt officers of your then junta. I think you innocently revealed to us your naivety about the power chess game on how to handle high-tension cable corruption. I believe sir, that the '84
putsch would have brought you the home lesson, that "if you fight corruption, corruption will fight you back". The anti-corruption war must be won. But beware sir, lest you pull the wheat with the weed.

Could you please take some lessons from President Felipe Calderon of Mexico (2006 -2012) in his war against the drug lords and mafia and the collateral damage that accompanied his milito- police adventure at making the country safer?

Mr President sir, Corruption is a multi billion dollar institution in our country. Its roots are deeper and far reaching than this DSS/ EFCC/MAGU approach. You pull this rug especially with this time worn strategy of stop and search approach of Magu, you would perennially have many Fani-Kayode who would come straight from the EFCC cells to come laugh at your face.
In my last letter to you, I warned that you may not be able to have a single court conviction in your first term as president because the "gra gra"records of the '80s may still cling to your babanriga.
Well thanks to the N78b recovered by you. But isn't that a scratch, compared to the cancer and the hemorrhage this country now suffers in the bid to bring the Tompolos and Jonathan Patience to trial? I believe you in the absolute, when you moaned that militants are been paid to burst pipes by past treasury looters. But l m only surprised that you didn't foresee the scenario.
Again, if you aren't careful and diplomatic about this Corruption War, the owners of the oil would bring you to your knees and feed you their crumbs. Please sir, do not listen to war mongers around you who would deceive you about the none importance of the delta region. The Delta is our nation's curse. The oil from those wells would remain the oxygenated air of this nation at least for the next 20 years, until we have Daniels who would do this diversification rhetorics. Until then, Edwin Clark and his minions would lure you to their creeks to be humiliated and disgraced.

3). AN ECONOMIC TEAM.
Sir, much talks are in meetings and fora about your economic team. I ll tell you why. Nigerians are now used to seeing and hearing Charles Soludo, Lamido Sanusi, El-Rufai, Olusegun Aganga, and the pride of this nation, Ngozi Okonjo-Iwealla. This past decade, these minds have given hopes and direction specifically to the emergent private sector that built up the economic indices that the PDP would continually taunt you with. Let me remind you sir, that the economic inputs of the Telecoms, Banking, Oil and Gas, and Services sectors, derived their stimuli through the combine effects of the brains aforementioned.

Sir, who presently in your team can we trust and look up to? Kemi Adeosun has dreamy eyes to behold, but her shoulders are too frail to bear the burdens of this season of famine. For example, she's talking a mere N350b injection in the last quarter of 2016 to reflate an economy where 27 states are collectively owing workers! Politics aside sir, an Iwealla by now would have been speaking in billions of dollars as intervention funds.

Also, Emefiele Godwin had done you more harm than a loquacious Ayo Fayose by his forex management and questionable monetary policies that had been derided even by former occupants of the CBN.

Succinctly put sir, you need an A-list. You need faces known and trusted by the gobal Venture Capitalists and investors who would pour in funds to fund our dollar needs, open offices, and create jobs.
Everything is chiefly done by perception sir. The world claps for you on your financial honesty, but know sir, that, such attribute offers low leverage, if sound and intelligent economic policies are lacking.

Permit my roughness sir, Mr. President- sack the deadwoods in your cabinet. Now. You have paid enough royalty on those that got you elected. Begin the process of shopping for uncommon minds who would make up for your well known laxities, right now.

Lastly, my many thanks for your patience reading this through. I wish you success as you stir the ship of this great country amidst this rocky island.
I wish you good health and longer years ahead. I also do ask that you shut up the whispering voices about the 2019 ticket.

Regards to Hajia Aisha and your lovely family.

Yours,
Olanegan Taye.

If I don't have the time to read this epistle, the President won't have the time to read it

Immatex:
If I don't have the time to read this epistle, the President won't have the time to read it

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