NIGERIA ECONOMY AND THE REST OF US
Before going into the details of this article, let me just give out some drama that has played out over the years.
ACT 1, SCENE 1:
THESE NIGERIANS PREDICTED TODAY'S ECONOMIC SITUATION OF THE COUNTRY today. THEY WERE CALLED NAMES...
Over 20 billion dollars unremitted to federation account. Nigeria economy will crumble if nothing is done ...........HRH Emir Sanusi Lamido Sanusi .
Bingos: He is an alarmist.
Whoever wins 2015 will never find it easy. Over 30 trillion is mismanaged, unaccounted for or missing under Jonathan. ...... Prof Charles Soludo.
Bingo's : He is desperate .
Our reserve is depleted and our savings squandered. Our nation is in trouble. ... Dr Oby Ezekwesili.
Bingo's : She is an alarmist looking for appointment.
For seven months, NNPC did not remit any money into federation account. When I called as a sitting governor and major oil producing state, Deziani Alison Madueke refused to take my call....... Senator Godswill Akpabio.
Bingo's : He is trying to please Buhari.
I wanted to save but Jonathan have no political will. That is why we are in crisis because we squandered our boom. .... Okonjo Iweala. ...
Bingo's : She doesn't want to be arrested
Dear Noisy Bingo's,
Whatever is the state of economy today was prophesied by our own Nigerians long time ago. The only problem is that your memory capacity is less than 1 milibyte. Prof. Soludo wrote to Nigerians what they will suffer irrespective of the party that will win. Why then are you celebrating IMF recession? You ignored Emir Sanusi warning. You ignored Oby Ezekwesili warning. You ignored Prof Soludo warning. You ignored Akpabio confession. You ignored Okonjo Iweala testimony. You are now celebrating IMF diarrhea. Your idiocy is amazing! !!!
Before this very time, when Ex-president Olusegun handed over power to Late President Shehu Musa Yar’dua. Chief Olusgun Obasanjo left for the in-coming Government almost 50 Million Dollars in Foreign Reserve and over 30 Million Dollars in Excess Crude Account. This was at a time when the price of crude oil was at 50 Dollars per Barrel. When Late Yar’dua took over it increased to 60 dollars then, 70 dollars per barrel. By the time Ex-president Goodluck took over a president in 2010 and his election in 2011, the price of oil in the international market was 90 dollars per barrel, then by 2011 it increased to 120 dollars and later on to 140 dollars per barrel. During this time in question, our official bench mark for oil in the budget was 60 dollars per barrel. The out put which we sell in the international Market is 2.2 MILLION BARRELS PER DAY, though you and I knew there back door sells in NNPC over the years. From the budget proposals of oil Bench mark, we are having an access of 60 dollars per barrel. As at the time Goodluck took over, there is over 42 Billion dollars in foreign reserve and over 31.1 Billion Dollars in Excess Crude account. From the output of 2.2 Million Dollars per day, Nigeria have extra 60 dollars per day average. When you multiply, 60 dollars by 2.2 Million barrels per day. Tell me the figure. That is what is supposed to enter into Excess Crude Account per pay. Then multiply it by 5 years plus when Ex-president Goodluck was there. Tell me what is supposed to be in that account. But instead of this account to be appreciating, it was depreciating. In less than 9 months, we squandered over 10 Billion on no capital projects.
In one of Prof. Soludo’s letter to Former Finance Minister, Olusegun Aganga in 2010, he told the minister that He assumed office when oil price was about $75 per barrel and external reserves stood at about $42 Billion: within 9 months you (Chief Aganga) have earned a world record as the Head of an Economic Management Team (EMT) that lost $10 billion in Foreign reserves at a time of unprecedented export boom, with oil price now above $100 per barrel; (2) While the Economic team I (Prof. Soludo) belonged to got Nigeria debt relief, you get the world record as a Finance Minister who had the fastest rate of debt accumulation in Nigeria’s History, even at a ime of oil boom and presented a budget where not a kobo of oil revenue is spent on infrastructure, power etc, but 114% of revenue spent on consumption; and (3) as head of economic team when literally all international ratings for Nigeria worsened even worse than during the global crisis of 2008 and 2009, and for the first time in several years, the outlook for the economy adjudged NEGATIVE, with FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) collapsing ( a clear indication of loss of confidence by international investors), etc. Prof. soludo went ahead to congratulate the Minister on these records.
Also when the signs were visible that the economy was going down. The next Finance Minister after Chief Aganga was Dr. Okonji-iweala kept lying to us that all is well with the economy. It was at this point that Prof. soludo strike again. He challenged the Minister to debate. Let me tell all Nigerians the truth.
Prof. Soludo then challenged claims by Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala, who is also the Coordinating Minister of the Economy, that the Nigerian economy is doing well. He accused Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala of running the country’s economy aground. “You are brilliant Madam, but you need serious help,” he said while reeling our data to show the porous state of the Nigerian economy. “Having spent all your life in the World Bank bureaucracy largely in administration/operations, no one will blame you if your economics has become a bit rusty. There are firebrands Nigerians all over the world to draft to service. It is certainly embarrassing to Nigeria for you to be bothering World Bank economists to help you with most basic economic analysis.” He also accused her of forging Nigeria’s national economics statistics. Mr. Soludo said, “What worries me is that this government ( Dr Ebele Jonathan’s government) is the first in our history to attempt to manipulate our national statistics under Dr Okonjo-Iweala. When NBS published the poverty figures in 2011, she felt indicted and incensed. She called upon the World Bank to come and examine the ‘methodology’ and get NBS to ‘review’ its numbers. Dr Oby Ezekwesili (as VP Africa Region rejected the call to try to tamper with a country’s statistics). Once Dr Oby left, the ‘World Bank’ started talking about ‘new figures’, without conducting any new surveys.
I was told about it by a World Bank economist, and I cautioned that it was a dangerous gamble that would damage the credibility of the NBS. If you want to ‘review methodology’, you conduct another survey but you can’t change ‘methodology’ because you don’t like the published figures. No government in our history has tried it: even Sani Abacha allowed a poverty survey that put poverty at 67% under his regime. At this rate, who will believe statistics coming from the Nigerian government again? Is it now the World Bank that sits in Washington and allocates poverty numbers to Nigeria? Something smells here. When prof. Soludo raised these issues. He was attacked as usual by Government officials.
In His response, He said I read some of the responses to my article, “Buhari vs Jonathan: Beyond the Election”, and I want to thank everyone who has contributed to the debate. I am glad that the debate has finally taken off. I have decided, for the record, to re-enter the debate if only to set some records straight and hopefully elevate the debate further. Whom do I respond to? First, let me thank Ex-Gov Kayode Fayemi for his very mature and professional response on behalf of the APC. It forms a great basis for deepening the conversation. Pat Utomi, Oby Ezekwesili, Iyabo Obasanjo, and thousands of other patriotic Nigerians have raised the content of the debate. Femi Fani-Kayode made me laugh, as usual. The Gov. Jang faction of the Governors’ Forum played the usual politics, although I know what most of them think privately. Who else? Oh, Peter Obi. Well, since he can’t write and designated Valentine as usual to write for him (who never disputed the NBS statistics that Obi broke world record in the pauperization of Anambra people but instead focused on lies and abuses) I won’t dignify him with a response here. His third class performance in Anambra will be the subject of a comprehensive article later.
Prof. Soludo challenged Dr Okonji-iweala’s attempt to blame others for not saving for the rainy day. It is not a virtue when you are quick to appropriate all the credit when things are going well, but shift the blame when they go wrong. You blame the state governors— who, according to you, have taken the Federal Government to the Supreme Court—not that a Supreme Court judgment forced your hands. For your information, the governors have never agreed to savings and always threatened court action even under Obasanjo. Why did we save under Obasanjo but not under Jonathan? Two keywords explain it: leadership and integrity. Governor Amaechi said the governors insisted on sharing the funds because they found out that you were illegally fiddling with the savings. So, as Nigerians still wonder, if billions of dollars are now ‘missing’ under your nose, why should governors trust you to keep their money? Do the states that have taken the federal government to the Supreme Court and refused to save also include the PDP governors—who are in the majority? If so, then it is fatal: even governors of your own party, PDP, do not trust you to keep their money!
Furthermore, did the governors also stop the Federal Government from saving part of its share? If you ran a surplus budget at the Federal level, you would have had credibility to blame others or to say they did not listen to your advice. The key point is that since you were running huge deficits yourself, it was also in your own interest to share the ECA. You did not show leadership or credibility, full stop!
Prof. Soludo also told Dr Okonji-iweala that He felt embarrassed for him to read that one of the reasons for declining forex reserves is ‘oil theft’. Under you as Minister of Finance and coordinator of the economy, the basket of our national treasury is leaking profusely from all sides. Just a few illustrations! First, you admit that ‘oil theft’ has reduced oil output from the average 2.3 – 2.4 million barrels per day (mpd) to 1.95mpd (meaning that at least 350,000 to 450,000 barrels per day are being ‘stolen’. On the average of 400,000 per day and the oil prices over the past four years, it comes to about $60 billion ‘stolen’ in just four years. In today’s exchange rate, that is about N12.6 trillion. This is at a time of cessation of crisis in the Niger Delta and amnesty programme. Can you tell Nigerians how much the amnesty programme costs, and also the annual cost for ‘protecting’ the pipelines and security of oil wells? And the ‘thieves’ are spirits? Come on, Madam! Second, my earlier article stated that the minimum forex reserves should have been at least $90 billion by now and you did not challenge it. Rather it is about $30 billion, meaning that gross mismanagement has denied the country some $60 billion or another N12.6 trillion.
Now add the ‘missing’ $20 billion from the NNPC. You promised a forensic audit report ‘soon’, and more than a year later the Report itself is still ‘missing’. This is over N4 trillion, and we don’t know how much more has ‘missed’ since Sanusi cried out. How many trillions of naira were paid for oil subsidy (unappropriated?). How many trillions (in actual fact) have been ‘lost’ through customs duty waivers over the last four years?
As coordinator of the economy, can you tell Nigerians why the price of automotive gas oil (AGO), popularly called diesel, has still not come down despite the crash in global crude oil prices, and how much is being appropriated by friends in the process? Be honest: do you really know (as coordinator and minister of finance) how many trillions of Naira, self- financing government agencies earn and spend? I have a long list but let me wait for now. I do not want to talk about other ‘black pots’ that impinge on national security. My estimate, Madam, is that probably more than N30 trillion has either been stolen or lost or unaccounted for or simply mismanaged under your watchful eyes in the past four years. Since you claim to be in charge, Nigerians are right to ask you to account. Think about what this amount could mean for the 112 million poor Nigerians or for our schools, hospitals, roads, etc. Soon, you will start asking the citizens to pay this or that tax, while some faceless “thieves” were pocketing over $40 million per day from oil alone.
Your response on the poverty issue is deeply troubling. You accuse me of using “2011 statistics on poverty by the NBS to support his argument, while ignoring more recent figures”. At least you did not refute the NBS figure as valid. In the next sentence, Madam went ahead to note that “as stated in the Nigeria Economic Report 2014 by the World Bank, poverty in Nigeria has dropped from 35.2 percent of population in 2010/2011 to 33.1 percent in 2012/2013”. Did you notice that you have quoted two figures for poverty for the same year as being equally correct? So, for 2011, was poverty 71% (according to NBS) or 35% according to the World Bank? To the best of my knowledge, the last published household survey by NBS was in 2011. The World Bank does not conduct household surveys in member states to determine poverty incidence. So, when and by whom was the survey that gave the World Bank figures?
Madam alleges that the NBS—as a parastatal under the National Planning Commission (under me) departed from the ‘international standard method of poverty measurement’. How and when, Madam? I was in office at National Planning for 11 months from July 2003 to May 2004. A poverty survey was conducted in 2004 and the results computed and published in 2005/2006— more than a year after I had gone to the Central Bank. Or perhaps, it was a clever way to divert attention from your manipulation of published economic statistics. The NBS published its poverty data in 2006 when you were Minister of Finance, and you did not question the ‘methodology’ because the figures looked good. In 2011, the poverty numbers (using the same methodology as in 2005/2006) indicted the government and suddenly, the ‘methodology’ is wrong. Interesting times!
Now that you decide which economic statistics published by NBS to accept and which ones to ‘change the methodology’ to give favourable figures, you can keep feeding your manipulated figures to your international media circus for the vain glorious awards to sustain an empty hype, while Nigerians groan under hardship. We can actually ask Nigerians whether they are getting better off now contrary to your bogus figures. This is the kind of lies Nigerians want to hear from a woman that does not understand practical economics. Today, some so called Economist and Elites who are no longer benefitting from the system are blaming President Buhari while they are celebrating people who ruin this country.
Paschal Candle, a public affairs analyst and a graduate of international studies and diplomacy University of Benin, writes from Abuja Nigeria.

OP where's your own sense of reasoning if you can't summarize an article. You just copy and paste for here like sey we get time.

How does this long rubbish help us get rid of Buhari before he finish Nigerians with hunger.

This is all nonsense and the propaganda continue.

Time is up. Nigerians don't give a Bleep about this rubbish anymore.

Thank God prices of Crude Oil has increase though zombies seem not to notice it except to cry over low prices of crude oil and avengers.

Buhari, nay Apc must do something fast because I see danger in 2019 elections.

God bless 9ja

Paschal28 a.k.a Paschal Candle, your English is too poor to ever make grammatical sense. Stop passing off other people's work as yours. That's plagiarism and it is a crime.

May God bless the author of this piece abundantly for his insight.

at freeze or whatever you call yourself. All i can see you do on nairaland is to attack the messenger not the message. i want you all to dissect the message and prove me wrong. if you have seen this piece anywhere,just tell me. then i will know i copied it somewhere. stop fooling your self. for record purposes,you freeze cannot stand me when it comes to grammatical expression. i will lecture you well.

The foundation of today's financial conundrum was laid long ago. Buhari's Economic Team aren't helping matters with INCOMPETENCE,LACK OF BLUEPRINT & PRACTICAL SOLUTION TO OUR ECONOMY MALAISE.

It's not compulsory we have an Economist as President before we can get out of the woods. Its political will, crass determination and prompt follow up of policy devt implementation not dilly dally as being experienced under PMB.
RAWLINGS of Ghana said "I am not interested in all these economic theories, what. I want is d theory that puts FOOD on the TABLE for Ghanaians and BANISHED HUNGER"!!
WE can take a cue from that and get Nigeria working again!!