Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Godwin Emefiele and some media chiefs at the weekend met to discuss the economy, recession and how the misapplication of the country’s foreign reserves. The apex bank chief spoke on the measures being put in place to revamp the economy. Group Business Editor SIMEON EBULU was there. Nigeriais in a recession, the first in decades. Things are bad and the people are suffering. How did we get there?I must apologise that this is happening to our people. But I must confess that what is happening today is as a result of a global crisis. Global crisis in the sense that we have seen commodity prices dropping, we’ve seen geo-political tension, all around the world.But I think when you want to address the issue of how we got here, it is important for us to go back into history, to remind ourselves that there was a time in this country when this country survived only on revenues from agricultural produce.At that time, I’m talking about the 50s and the 60s and indeed up to the early 90s, Nigeria was the largest producer and exporter of palm produce in the world. Unfortunately, we abandoned these sectors because we found oil. I wish what we did at that time was to hold on to our potential in the agricultural sector. If we had held on to our potential in the agricultural sector, in thesame vein held on to the potential (oil) that we found, our story would have been different today.Unfortunately, what happened was that because we found oil, we let our guards down in the agricultural sector. And I’ll give you an example, this for me is a case of a country that unfortunately didn’t plan properly. Norway, a country with a population of less than five million people, produces agricultural produce, particularly fish. It exports fish today. Norway also produces crude oil, to the extent that today, ithas one of the highest investments in the Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF). Norway, indeed, has $873 billion in its (SWF). Notwithstanding having such a huge amount, Norway also takes very seriously the output from fish production, to the extent that the country survives on the revenue that it generates from fish export.What does the country do with revenue from crude? It invests it. And at every point, the country is about to use the funds from crude oil. It only uses it for infrastructure purposes. That is a country that has planned for its people. Soon after we introduced the foreign exchange (forex) restriction on the importationof fish, the country’s farmers started complaining to the extent that the Parliament in Norway has met twice to see to how to ameliorate the adverse impacts of not being able to export fish to Nigeria on its farmers. Indeed, the country has sent several trade delegations to Nigeria to encourage us to lift the restriction so that they can export fish to Nigeria and we in turn pay them our hard-earned dollars which we do not have atthis time. What we should all realise is that, by allowing the import of goods that can be produced locally in Nigeria, we export wealthand jobs to those countries and import poverty in return.But, unfortunately we didn’t plan this way for our people and that’s why we are where we are today. And I’ll give you a few examples again. InSeptember 2008, Nigeria’s foreign reserve stood at $62 billion. What did we do with $62 billion? At a time the crude oil price was about N120 per barrel. What did the country do?What we could have done was to save the money. If we couldn’t save the money, investit in infrastructure, invest it in industry that would grow productivity and the wealth of our people. But what did we do? The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) at thattime went about licensing class ‘A’, class ‘B’, class ‘C’ Bureaux de Change (BDCs).To class ‘A’ BDCs, the CBN was allocating $1 million per week; to class ‘B’ BDCs, it was allocating $750, 000 per week and to class ‘C’ BDCs, it was allocating $500,000 per week to the extent that between 2005 when the apex bank started selling dollar cash and January 2016, when we stopped it, the CBN had sold dollar cash of up to $66 billion to BDCs. In 11 years, CBN allocated $66 billion, averaging $6 billion per year. If this didn’t happen, we would, comfortably, be having well over $90 billion in our reserve account today and we will not be struggling to pay our bills.If we had thought of other ways to utilise our reserves in 2008 when it was as high as$62 billion, perhaps certainly, we would not be where we are.How do you expect the recession to be over with prices going up and manufacturers lacking raw materials?Let me say this, I must confess that I wasn’t optimistic that the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) will come initially, but with what we have seen in three months, almost $1 billion had come. I feel that there will be more inflow into the system and more and more people will have foreign exchange to do their businesses. That will improve the industrial capacity. The rate may be high now, but there’s high possibility that with more availability of forex, the rate will come down.I am very optimistic that a lot of positive things will happen.Now in terms of short run, I have talked about encouraging inflows to come in. I havetalked about how the fiscal authority is trying to push in liquidity to stimulate consumption, demand consumption expenditure and of course, when consumer consumption is stimulated, demand for goods will go up and if these demand goes up, the industrial capacity, then you will seethe activities. If we maintain a steady course in the way we are going, and if all those who have forex repartriate them, more and more people will have forex to do their business. That will improve industrial capacity. The rates may be high now, but there is the possibility that as we receive moreand more foreign exchange, the rate will come down. I am really optimistic that this will happen.What’s your view to calls on government to embark on assets stripping?You will recall that as at April last year, I had an interview withFinancial Timesof London. That was even before the present government came on board. I had opined that there was need for the government to scale down or sell off some of its investments in oil and gas, particularly in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) andthe Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) as at that time when the price of oil was around $50-$55 per barrel. We actually commissioned some consultants that conducted the study and at the end of that study, we were told if we sell 10 per cent to 15 per cent of our holdings in the oil and gas sector, we could realise up to $40 billion. Unfortunately, the markets have become soft.Now, if we choose to do that now, we could still get $10-$15 billion or maybe $20 billion. If we have that kind of liquidity, it will be easy for us to really stimulate spending and also to turn the economy around. That proposal is still on the table because I have also heard that some of our colleagues in theFederal Executive Council (FEC) have talked about it, and a lot of people too. If we take that option, I am optimistic that we will be able to stimulate the economy and earn foreign currency that we can really use to jumpstart and stimulate the economy.Don’t forget that even in the U.S., when the economic crisis started, the U.S. government stimulated the economy with about $900 billion and subsequently injected $85 billion monthly for an extended period of time.In Japan and Europe with low rate of inflation, in fact they have negative interest rate. Anytime they want to stimulate the economy by liquidity, if you push the inflation it will not affect prices.We are trying to fight inflation to remain at a point where it will not be too high and become injurious to our people.Don’t you think the absence of Chief ExecutiveOfficers (CEOs) in some of the parastatals willrender ineffective government’s desire to fasttrack spending even with a bill to shortenthe procurement process in place?Unfortunately, I don’t agree with you because we have cabinet members and most of these agencies are headed by ministers and we have people who are working in acting capacity.