NIGERIA, DOLLAR, RECESSION, PRIVATIZATION AND THE WAY FORWARD
Nigeria is a well-known country and the giant of Africa as it has been called from ages past in the African Continent and the world at large. It has been a country where investors troops in large number in recent times as a result of its potentials in economic activities.
It is so painful that a country blessed with a lot of mineral and natural resources is going into recession as a result of mismanagement by top ranking government and political office holders who sees their seat as a get rich quick avenue instead of using it to contribute to the economic well-being of the country.
In recent times, the cost of living for our dear Nigerian people has been hell for even the average man not to talk about those who can hardly feed trice a day or the poor who spend less than a dollar a day as cost of virtually everything has doubled.
Without wasting much time, we shall be looking at the causes of recession and a way of getting over it.
RECESSION is a term used for a period of reduced economic activities, it can be seen as a negative real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) during two consecutive quarters.
Nigeria is in recession today as result of not saving for the rainy days and also due to the fact that there is much dependence of foreign products and currency. This practice has adversely affected the growth of the country’s economy and the country at large.
It is not enough to stop importation without making provision for what was being imported to be produced and processed locally. Looking at the Agricultural sector, the government is doing little at least to boost agriculture but this is done just at the primary level, the question is, are there industries to process what has been produced? What measure is been taken to provide access to produce from farmers and are there long term storage facilities? I am certain the answer to this question is a capital NO.
In my opinion, if all these listed above are addressed properly and catered for, it will increase our agricultural sector and encourage people to go into more of modernized farming.
Let’s briefly look at the issue of dollar, why it is rising steadily against the naira and what I feel should be done.
Dollar is a well-known currency in the world and in Nigeria, there is a very high demand for dollar as a result of the country being import dependent. Because virtually everything is important, our currency has to be exchanged to dollars in order to purchase goods abroad hence there is high demand for it and virtually no much demand for our dear currency to be exchanged because we don’t have much people coming in to buy goods. In view of this and in order to curtail the dollar inflow, measures were put in place to ensure a reasonable exchange rate in which the CBN has given the dollar a flexible exchange rate as against the fixed rate of N197 to a dollar, this further made the dollar to rise as high as N350 in the official market to a dollar and over N460 a to a dollar in the black market.
In my opinion, even if a dollar is exchanged at N1000, the dollar will continue to rise until the following is done which I believe is the way forward:-
1. The government should look into those abandoned industries like cotton, ajaokuta steel industry, coal and other several abandoned industries and revive them to standard. These will boost even existing industries as their end products could still be used as raw materials for other industries.
2. The government should spend more on revenue generating projects such as building of more industries to allow for manufacturing of raw materials such as gold, diamond, limestone and others to boost the economy of the country. You may be surprise to know that we have such minerals as gold and diamond in this country left untouched with over dependence on oil alone
3. The rate of borrowing money to buy officials cars and building government lodges/houses should be reduced and those built already put into proper use.
4. The dependency of state and local government on monetary issues should be reduced hence states should look into exploring and generating revenue from there minerals deposits and other possible sources
5. Finally, there should be a measure to attract foreigners to come in to buy our processed products in NAIRA and not in dollars or other currencies, this implies that if there are several people coming in to buy goods in naira, the demand for naira will start rising against the dollar and other currencies thereby making them to fall against the naira, this is the same principle that is being used on the naira for its free fall. Once most of our products are being exported with us importing just very little, the Nigerian currency will start getting momentum and with time, it will become stable and firm.


These, I believe can help the country get up from its present position of free fall.

PRIVATIZATION
This is another thing that is indirectly killing the country and sending it to its early grave.
Looking critically into privatization in Nigeria and most especially, the current situation of Nigerian government to sell some of its properties to get out of recession, another question comes to mind and this is, if we sell all we have to get out of recession, what will happen if eventual if the country goes into recession in the future?

Generally, let’s consider this scenario, a LANDLORD who earns extra income of 500k every year, needed money to solve some problem, went and sold his house without investing the money in another business that can generate income for him, what will happen the subsequent years when he no longer gets the 500k extra income he used to get, what if he is in dare need of money again in the future? Will he sell himself, wife or children? He will definitely go into continuous borrowing which he will never afford to pay back as his extra income is no longer coming. This is the case with Nigeria today. If Nigeria sells its shares or part of its shares of NLNG and others of its holding, it simply means a reduction in its income/revenue.

Back to privatization proper, the issue of privatization is pioneered by money mongers who wants to put more money in their pockets and find a way of making us believe that, if a company or a government assets is privatized, it will function better, let’s take a clearer look at NEPA for instance, after selling it if off, was there any difference in power supply, there are several places in the country who cannot boast of 3 hours power supply for a whole month yet they pay exorbitant bills, is that not public stealing?

What these top government and political office holders do is this, they make us believe it will perform well when privatized(but this is not their real motive), air it out and look for supporters(Partners in crime/stealing) to echo it, uses a businessman as a frontline to purchase what is to be privatized, and pay underground thereby becoming owner/major shareholder and making huge profits to their pockets, these profits is actually supposed to be utilized by the government if taken proper care of and not privatized.
In my opinion, the top ogas should stop fooling us and make the country a better place for its citizen.

In conclusion, the government should look inward and proffer a better solution to tackling economic recession rather than using our heads in order to enrich themselves.
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