LETTER TO MY PRESIDENT

Your Excellency Mr. President,
I would like to say that your recent economic policies are very good and timely. The policy prohibiting foreign exchange in transactions involving some goods and services is very welcome. But for these policies to work, there are certain things that must be put in place else a good policy might meet with outright failure.
In a bid to rescue our dying economy, we must not implement policies in such a way that other countries with which we have maintained diplomatic ties over the years will begin to see our gestures as economic sanctions. If we prevent or make it difficult for our citizens to access educations in foreign countries, prohibit the use of foreign exchange to import certain goods and services and make such move so obvious and drastic, what then will happen if we become a robustly exporting country someday? What will become of us when we have institutions that now attract foreign exchange for which we will require huge patronage? We must be subtle and diplomatic.
Mr. President, soon, there will be influx of Nigerian students back into their home country. Students who will want to seek solace in Nigerian Universities. Do we have adequate institutions that will accommodate such population and give them the quality of education that made them to seek foreign alternatives in the first place? Are there readily available Nigerian Manufactured goods that will replace the ones we used to import? These are issues we need to put into consideration and deal with. I think the Nigerian government must first make ready these things before implementing certain policies. The scraping of bureau de change has not been effective as operators still access foreign currencies through the back door from their cronies in the central bank. The situation has only created artificial scarcity, increased demand and reduced supply which in turn have led to hyper-inflation. An ugly situation has just reared its head as forex speculators have invaded Nigeria from nearby African countries where the dollars are easily sourced in a bid to rip-off Nigerians who are in desperate need of dollars
We must look inwards. To do that, we must explore options that will bring quick and reliable results. As we look forward to becoming an exporting country, which of course will help generate more foreign exchange and help stabilize our naira, we must start with options that are not necessarily long term. Agriculture remains our sure bet. When we have been able to stabilize on revenues that agriculture will bring, funding of long term projects will no longer be an issue. To be able to do this, farmers at all levels from top to grass root must be carried along and put under one umbrella. They must know channels and outlets where their produce must reach export.
Having done this, the next focus should be refineries. We do not need to export unrefined products to other countries at give away prices. The real market is the refined products whereby we can take absolute control of the market in African countries where there is a huge demand for refined products. When we do this our foreign exchange will know no bounds. Private investors might not have the capacity to build mega refineries. There must be something like mini refineries that many will be very interested to build, while they start sales by targeting the local market for a start or as a test run.
Finally, I suggest that monies recovered from looters should be completely directed to capital projects, starting with agriculture. This is my own little contribution and I hope you read this.