Facts over Feelings

The fact that so many who crucified Jonathan stayed silent for 8 years under buhari.

I will never forget this. This fact taught me a lot of lessons about Nigerians

As one can see the deficit is rising year in and year out.

Simple reasons

1.We rely on oil too much for all our income

2.Notice the deficit is very high under Buhari...it is a testament to his bad leadership...manifested by maintaing subsides, refusing to float the naira, and by NOT DIVERSIFYING THE ECONOMY....which is basically like , the key indicatior of his regime being bad.

3.Yaradua has the lowest deficit, because 1) He had the highest oil prices ever for over a year...above $145 for most of 2008 and 09, and he also was very strict regarding spending . I mean, ministries have to return money they did not spend at the end of the year. Even anti-corrupt people thought he was too strict self.

4.Obasanjo had second lowest...but consider that our dollar utilizatin under Obasanjo was lower than tunder say GEJ or even Buhari.

5.A big cause of deficits is subsidy. As you can see, deficits kept on rising because subsidy costs rise. The more subsidy costs rise...the more money is spent on paying for the subsidy, the more money is taken from subsidy costs and the more we end up with a big hole in the budget.

Now GEJ and his financial girls and boys could see the coming storm in 2015 onwards...in 2011, which is why they wated to remove subsidy in 2012. (My oppositon to subsidy dates back from that time, and starts with me asking why GEJ was bugging us about this subsidy thing...). But Buhari and TInubu led the oppositon...and when Bubu took over, he too soon had his eyes opened. But because he was stubborn, he refused to remove subsidies...and the deficit kept on rising and rising. Had he admitted he was wrong in 2015, and removed subsides completely then....the deficit would STILL have been large, but not as large as it was because at the end, he would no longer have subsides to spend.


(A note on subsides...all those price increases we see in petrol since May 29. Had subsidy been there...it won't have been us paying the price increases. We would still be buying fuel at N200. But government spending on subsidy would have gone up from N330 per liter to N430 or more per liter by now...and that would have impacted on the budget badly. It would have caused the deficit to grow well well).


At the end, Nigerian leaders, expecially the APC lot have failed in

1.Not removing subsides...they had to remove petrol subsidy because they were running out of money, and the subsidy costs were creating a deficit that would have left them with zero money to loot in several months.

2. Not diversifying the economy. Nigeria cannot keep relying on oil.


I have not much hope for the new Tinubu admin, but since it is early days, I'm holding my peace. Let's see what happens by the end of the year.

But at the end, regardless of deficit....Nigeria cannot rely only on oil and oil alone.


My 2 CENTS.


(I am apolitical, and I do not support either of the APC, PDP or LP candidates, at all.).

The graph key?