Few days before a new year Nigerians are always very hopeful for a better new year, one that they are financially better. However, the facts on ground, shows that only an infinitecimally few Nigerians will reap gains in the coming year. This is by no means a prophet-of-doom-like article, it is one to have all of us view things in the right and factual perspective. Here are the facts.

1. Prior to 2012 pump price was N67/liter and our exchange rate of about N151. I'd like to put this in dollar terms to make things easy when comparing. This means fuel was 0.45cents/litter or $2.21/gallon, international oil price was hovering around $100/barrel and our budget benchmark was set at $75/barrel with excess going to our Federation's excess crude account. The presidency, "took out" the "subsidy", which investigations show that no one was really subsidizing anything, only that billions of dollars where simply guzzled up by a few well-connected oil marketers. After the take out, pump price rose to N97/liter officially, however most Nigerians buy at about N125/litter or $4/gallon. This ballooned our inflation to about 20% that same year. This simply means that if a civil servant made $1000 in 2012, the real value of that money or rather the purchasing power of that money reduced to $800. A wooing 20% depreciation. This simply means that Nigeria got poorer by 20% in 2013.

2. Meanwhile, in 2013 our dollar value went down from $1 to N151 to $1 to N165. this means Naira value fell by 9.2%. It simply means that if your money value reduced from $1000 to $800 due to the inflation that was caused by hiked up pump prices, you lost another 9.2% in value making your $1000 monthly income reduced to about $710 purchasing value.

3. Nigeria remains the only OPEC country that amidst reduced oil prices hovering at around $56/barrel, pump price remained hiked. today consumers in the US pay an average of $2.5/gallon while Nigerians pay $4/gallon. Recall per capita income in the US is hovering around $48,000 as compared to Nigeria's $2,200 (meaning on average ever Nigerian citizen makes $2,200/annum, and $48,0000 per annum for thier American counterpart). Also recall that even though our per capita income hovers around $2200, Nigerians earn money in the local currency - Naira. Meaning that there is at least a 25% decrease in value for their average of $2200.

4. Today the dollar is now N187 to the Naira, do the math and see how much poorer you have become with the naira. Remember the main product matching the Nigerian currency is petrol, and that petrol is plummeting in price. We don't produce most things, hence most purchases are made in the international market through the dollar. It means importers have to use more naira to purchase their dollar, and must close the margins for their profits by hiking the prices of goods, ultimately affecting the Nigerian consumer.

5. With Boko Haram killings going on unabated the Nigerian life expectancy has been reduced from 52 years to only about 43 years. It means that many will unfortunately die before their 50th birth day. It does not matter if you are rich or poor. Let us take a scenario.

A couple of years ago, President Bill Clinton had chest pain in his downtown New York apartment, he went downstairs and was able to walk in to the the emergency room of New York Presbytarian hospital, there and then he was discovered to have over 90% blockage in his coronaries that would have killed him. Fortunately his life was saved because he had an emergency coronary by pass surgery.

Let us Switch Bill Clinton to President Jonathan or even Buhari or any so called "big man". He has chest pain that points to a blocked coronary. Can you please name one single hospital that can save his life? Unfortnately if that happened to any of our big men or our President, there is only one fate for him and that is death. It takes 6 hours to fly an air ambulance to Germany. It takes minutes to hours for an almost completely blocked coronary to kill the president. Can you now see the short sightedness of our leaders and why Most Nigerians won't live to see 50, especially given the current happenings in the country?

It is my wish and desire that we all realize the economic black hole the current government is plunging us into, that it may inform us to make the right choices to save our country from destruction.

God bless the Federal Repulic of Nigeria.

-CramJones

Keep blaming GEJ for you guys refusal to adopt the following


Resource control

Fiscal federalism

Privatization

Political federalism

Decentralization of Nigeria

Restructuring of Nigeria

Institutions submitting their quarterly activities to public scrutiny


Which are the fastest route to economic diversification , citizenry prosperity and political stability

Good write-up. I just hope people get the message.

Buhari might not be the saviour but he will surely be better than gej.

And y do u pdp e-diots like cursing?

I like this old troll