Jpphilips's Posts
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 Politics › Re: Breaking News!!! France Bankrolling Atiku's Campaign....to Buy Nnpc. by jpphilips(m): 10:31pm On Feb 11, 2019 |
socialmediaman:Im glad you couldn't dispute the facts there in. 3 Likes 1 Share |
| Politics › Re: Why Former US President Bill Clinton Is Visiting Buhari, Atiku by jpphilips(m): 10:23pm On Feb 11, 2019 |
JimD:Onĺy a chromosonal dysfunctional illiterate doesn't know that Angola is the second biggest crude oil producer in Africa, who will really blame you? 2 Likes 1 Share |
| Politics › Re: Your Presidency Reeks Of Corruption - PDP Tells Buhari by jpphilips(m): 9:42pm On Feb 11, 2019*. Modified: 10:42pm On Feb 11, 2019 |
trillville:While Nigeria was the highest producer of crude oil during the oil boom in Africa, Algeria was at number 3 behind Angola. Algeria saved $194b in 2014 when crude shock arrived, Jonathan had no good reason not giving you a $300b reserves like I said he left you with a paltry $29b, that error in judgement led to the forex crisis of 2016, if he had saved better, you won't be suffering today. Never mind he accumulated a 12.1T debt within the same boom period. Algeria depleted her reserves during the shock to $87b and remained the only oil dependent country in Africa that escaped recession. Furthermore, Algeria was injecting $10b into their armed forces since 2012, the only reason they are the 2nd best military in Africa behind Egypt today. Im not asking you not to vote Atiku, however, if you add PDP's perennial stealing to present crude shock, you will have yourself to blame. No sane country reward those that inflicted harm on them except Nigerians are suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Atiku is planning to sell NNPC that supply 77% of our forex to his friends, imagine the forex scarcity you will encounter afterwards. You mentioned tough economic policies that will save you right? Which policy has Angola, Egypt etc presented? Buhari, Osibanjo, Atiku, Peter Obi can not solve this problem, the economy needs minimum of $300b to return to pre 2014 times, there is nothing Nigeria sells today that can guarantee such insane amount, you need a diciplinarian like pmb to walk through this perilious times not an Atiku that not only want to grant Amnesty to looters but one that wants to sell NNPC. I never implied that the storm is over however, solving forex crisis is a step in the right direction pmb did it & must be credited for it, peter Obi himself said pdp will borrow more, who is the best manager between pmb that reduced our 2019 budget deficit to 1.64T from 2018 2T? Read here: https://twitter.com/officeofdcitize/status/1093162930231828481?s=19 Goodluck on Saturday! ! 4 Likes 2 Shares |
| Politics › Re: Your Presidency Reeks Of Corruption - PDP Tells Buhari by jpphilips(m): 9:03pm On Feb 11, 2019*. Modified: 10:51pm On Feb 11, 2019 |
Freeeanijor:What I wrote was not a debate for illiterates nor the historically malnutritioned, for Saturday's sake I will do you one huge favour about NITEL. Atiku did not give you GSM but OBJ and Ernest ndukwe. Nigeria was one of the countries tipped for gsm revolution in 1999 as tthe third biggest economy then, unfortunately, Nitel had a monopoly of all telecom licenses so Atiku had the chance to bring gsm but he wasted it, how? When OBJ approved the sale of NITEL, Atiku leased it to a company he engineered with El rufai as the then BPE chairman called Pentascope later found out to be an abandoned church in Netherlands by a parliamentary inquiry, Atiku signed a carte blanche for pentascope to spend Nitels $400m earned from its biggest infrastructure called SAT-3. That was the first time Nigerians woke up to the shock that a tenant (pentascope) could spend money belonging to Nitel (landlord) with no consequences, Atiku pulled the biggest heist in history. That dubious deal delayed the inroad of gsm into Nigeria, we ended up being the 9th in African behind smaller countries like Kenya, Ghana, Egypt etc. OBJ later sent an executive bill called the NCC act to parliament in which NCC had the power to regulate all telecom operators including pentascope with Ernest Ndukwe as its head, NCC accused pentascope of incompetence and auctioned its gsm license, that was the revolution that brought Econet, mtn & others. Im just telling you this to be convinced on Saturday when you vote that crook called Atiku. 2 Likes 3 Shares |
| Politics › Re: Why Former US President Bill Clinton Is Visiting Buhari, Atiku by jpphilips(m): 8:35pm On Feb 11, 2019 |
bigfish3k:Do you really know what or who a foreign investor is? 2 Likes |
| Politics › Re: Why Former US President Bill Clinton Is Visiting Buhari, Atiku by jpphilips(m): 6:26am On Feb 11, 2019 |
IS BUHARI TRULY RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR ECONOMIC WOES? A lot have been said about Buhari, how he brought hardship on Nigerians, how he is responsible for all the suffering in Nigeria, is that theory backed with facts and global economic realities or the shenanigans of few individuals basking in the Euphoria of ignorance? Since I must make a choice between our present loud political gladiators, I armed myself with Economics textbooks and news archive, here is what i discovered. Nigeria an oil producing and oil dependent economy suffered a global economic hit called crude oil price shock it is the sudden drop in price of crude oil in the commodity trading market, it has occurred at different times in History nearly every decade. Countries that are hardest hit by crude shock are basically countries that not only produce crude oil in significant amount but solely depend on it as their foreign exchange earner. While oil shocks have asymmetric effects in oil-exporting developing countries; lower oil prices lead to major revenue cuts and ensuing stagnation in the economy, but higher oil prices and accompanying higher revenues do not translate into sustained economic growth. What are the effects of crude shock in oil producing developing economies? Forex scarcity: Most developing economies whether oil producing or not, depend on importation to survive, where foreign currency becomes scarce, industries, individuals that have significant need for forex will likely close shops giving birth to the second problem unemployment then finally the master Recession. Unemployment: When industries no longer have forex to buy spare parts, can no longer afford raw materials, production slows, sales slows, profit eroded, workers sacked, since the volume of activities in the economy is directly proportional to the GDP, the GDP contracts and birth another economic monster Recession. Recession is a chain reaction of unpalatable economic events that shows the economy is not experiencing growth but contracting, lets look at the effects of recession, high energy cost (energy in most developing economies are subsidized one way or another) crude shock and eventually recession erodes government revenues till a point where it could no longer afford subsidies and other things it used to afford. In Nigeria where our Electricity Generation companies are subsidized, petroleum products are subsidized,you will understand that such partial or complete subsidy removal will quickly skyrocket the cost of living generally, transportation, cost of food etc are equally affected that leads to another monster called Inflation. Inflation: is defined as a phenomenon where huge bills are in search of few goods, how is that possible? when the industries that produce goods closed down, imports could not be sustained due to Forex shortages where will the goods come from? the absence of those goods while the bills remain triggers inflation, causes hunger and eventually poverty and devaluation of local currency. Devaluation is when global reserve currencies trade higher than your currency, of course you recall that an economy in crude shock first suffers Forex shortages, that robs the central bank (in the case of Nigeria) the ability to fix the currency at a reasonable exchange rate. The local currency is allowed to float along a band the cbn thinks may not be too hurtful on the economy. Forex ban is placed on certain commodities, debit cards like Visa, Mastercard et al are all placed on monthly transaction limits as a reflection of the reality of forex shortages. Okonjo iweala then finance minister and coordinator of the economy actually warned Nigerians in 2014 long before buhari came that the level of mismanagement will bring hunger to us, read here: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/business/171145-brace-tougher-times-ahead-okonjo-iweala-tells-nigerians.html If okonjo iweala saw this hunger in 2014, warned us about it, how can a sane person accuse buhari of bringing hardship? Between 2015-2017, all these happened in the Nigerian economy, then I asked "are we the only oil dependent economies in the world? why us alone? The answer took me to several countries in the world and I realized that other oil producing countries dont depend on oil alone, countries like Russia though the largest producer of crude oil in the world, has a robust defense industry that contribute significantly to its GDP, Russia equally enjoys large market shares in Gas distribution in Eurasia, by the time crude oil shock hit, Russia had over $400b in reserves, It became clear that the only economic move that could hold off crude oil shock and other global economic shocks is a robust foreign exchange reserves (Savings). Permit me to take you down our economic history, in 2008 during the global melt down, the then CBN governor prof. Chukwuma Charles soludo bragged that the Nigerian economy is immune to global shocks? That would have sounded ridiculous but it is true, what did he do? they launched an economic strategy called National Economic Empowerment And Development Strategy NEEDS. This strategy recommended that once crude oil is sold, the balance above the budget benchmark is kept in an account called the ECA, by the time that government left and another took over in 2007, both the ECA & Foreign reserve account held over $68b in reserves, in a $200b economy at the time, that reserve was significant enough to whither any storm that came the way of our economy, Much later into the crisis, Nigeria later relaxed its exchange rate to 155 to a dollar. now we know that Nigeria had in the past stood resilience in the face of global shocks with a culture of Savings. Global economic meltdown is worse than crude shock because in a meltdown, major economies are affected, capital flight becomes common in developing economies, crude oil customers reduce demand thereby pushing prices lower, the saddest part is that no country has money to borrow anyone during global meltdown, yet Nigeria Survived it with Soludo's brilliant strategy. A strategy that was blatantly refused by the previous administration when suggested by Iweala, recall that Iweala worked with Soludo in that NEEDS team. Fast forward to 2015, Three out of the top four producers of crude oil in Africa by their production, Nigeria, Angola, Algeria and Egypt were all in recession even though Egypt does not significantly depend on oil but her economy was shattered. Algeria escaped recession because by 2014, just like Nigeria in 2008, Algeria had a foreign reserve balance of $194b in a $156.1b economy (122% of GDP in savings).You can see that the Robust reserve of Algeria was their savior in this modern crude oil shock era. The previous administration in Nigeria boasted of leaving behind a paltry $19b for a $500b economy at the time (3.8% of GDP), that amount is not even enough to pay for imports let alone absorb global shocks, so Nigeria can be rightly described in late 2014 as an oil dependent economy with no savings. How important is this savings? Lets take our research to the Second largest producer of crude oil Angola, just like Nigeria with no significant savings, Angola's challenges needs no introduction, let facts speak for itself Angola suffered severe Forex & currency challenges just like Nigeria. According to Bloomberg They not only devalued their currency, they equally allowed it to float like Nigeria's Angola devalued its currency as the OPEC member sought to revive an economy still reeling from the oil-price crash four years ago. The kwanza fell 11 percent to 187.95 per dollar by 3:35 p.m. in Luanda and depreciated 10 percent to 221.75 against the euro. The move came a day after the central bank allowed the currency to weaken in its first auction of foreign exchange since announcing it would end a dollar peg that’s been in place since April 2016.....BloombergBorrowing to fund Budget deficits, just like Nigeria, Angola has borrowed to the point of requesting a bail out from the IMF https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/08/angola-says-to-request-4-5-bn-imf-loan-as-crisis-lingers/ Unemployment Rate in Angola increased to 20 percent in 2017 from 19.90 percent in 2016. https://tradingeconomics.com/angola/unemployment-rate Inflation in Angola was a whooping 23.67 percent in December 2017, data on the national statistics agency's website showed on Wednesday. Price growth on a month-on-month basis rose to 1.47 percent in January from 1.2 percent previously. Poverty in Angola According to Angola's 2001 MPI, more than 77% of the population was multidimensionally poor. ... The latest available World Bank figure for income poverty in Angola, from 2008, shows that 36.6% of the population is income poor. Angola's population is currently estimated at 29.7 million. I can go on and on the list is endless, as a matter of undeniable fact, Angola just like Nigeria are the largest producers in Africa, they practically did not save enough and they were hit hard by crude price shock. to balance the analysis, it will be unfair to discuss those that didn't save without giving kudos to those that saved, like i said previously, Algeria saved a whooping $194b when the going was good, as such its economy was immune to crude shock. Russia like we said though had currency challenges during the period under review ostensibly because of western sanctions, Russia had over $400b in reserves by ending of 2014. Saudi Arabia was immune to crude shock not without little currency & subsidy issues ostensibly because of its huge financing of the war in Yemen, they were sitting on a comfortable $732b by the end of 2014. My country men, you can see that this suffering was brought upon us by mismanagement by the same people that are warming up to continue from where fate has left us, if buhari had $100b in our foreign reserve in 2015, we wont be hungry today, we wont lose our jobs, we wont lose our manufacturing industries, this is the truth that shall set us free! Some even blamed it on Avengers attack of 2016 Niger delta avengers was a non issue, if you noticed, I expunged them from my initial analysis, here is why; We were in crude shock from late 2014, Avengers struck in 2016, since 2014, your GDP wasn't showing any growth but retrogression or doldrums meaning you were heading towards recession anyways as a result of crude shock. If Avengers did not strike, OPEC would have asked us to cut production to boost prices, read: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-28/opec-said-to-agree-on-first-oil-output-cut-in-eight-years So Avengers or any form of production cut at the time was a non issue. OPEC gave us production cut waiver because Nigeria has already declared force-majore in most of its crude oil export channels. Nigerian people, what is your present government doing to stem this tide that has shocked the fabrics of our nation to the Marrow? The vice president being the economic manager of the country Launched the ERGP, with it Nigeria even in recession was able to save $47b in our foreign reserve, at this pace, I have no doubt that this money will hit $100b in the next 4yrs, that is a guarantee that our economy will become immune to global shocks once again, not just crude shocks alone. (Algerian model) The moment that money crossed $40b mark, forex shortages disappeared, importers stopped complaining, manufacturers stopped complaining of dollar scarcity, debit cards relaxed their limits etc, that was a killer stroke in our economic recovery strategy, inflation immediately responded to the potency of the ERGP from 18.8% in 2017 to 11.23% in 2018. This reserve will boost investors confidence that the economy is liquid enough for profit repatriation, that is how the jobs will return, job creation is private sector driven, not govt. Among the three oil dependent economies in Africa that landed in recession within the same period, Nigeria was the first to exit recession, that was historical & mind blowing, despite fighting terrorism and with a massive population, we did it first before any other country. By Blocking loopholes Our Federal allocation that used to be a misery 311b naira in june 2016 is between 600-700b naira in presently. This volume if held steady will continue providing liquidity that will surely inflate the economy. Nigeria is building a Gas liquefying plant called the NLNG train 7 project, that will in a way increase revenue from Gas against depending on oil alone, there are other ongoing Gas projects like the AKK projects and other Gas for power projects, rightly put, the economy is being diversified towards gas. (Russian model) https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/07/nnpc-signs-agreement-for-seven-critical-gas-projects/ As you can see here, Manufacturing is gradually expanding, next will be jobs returning on its own https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2018/07/08/cbn-at-57-0-pmi-manufacturing-sector-expanded-in-june/amp/ We don't need Atiku's stealing to truncate an economic process already in recovery. In conclusion, I can state for a fact that the economic challenges of this country has nothing to do with Buhari under the circumstances he met on ground, we have a chance to fix culpability of blames where it rightly belongs on crude shock, or replace this government whose framework seems promising with another leadership of questionable integrity. Buhari is like a mechanic that was given a car to fix, only for the car owner to accuse him of being the problem of the car when he is yet to fix anything. We shall never go back to past governments whose inaction landed us in this mess in the first place. leadership in the past that we tasked to privatize our establishments, all failed save for the one that ended up in his pocket, yet he claimed to create Jobs? How many jobs were lost in that privatization scam where 56 government entities perished? Where is our NITEL, ALSCON, Nicon Insurance to mention a few? Leadership that claims to create jobs but his company PRODECO folded up? Leadership that claim to create jobs yet it was Buhari that sacked foreigners littered everywhere in his company, does an ordinary logistics company need that much foreigners? Leadership that is a case study for corruption and money laundering by the US Senate committee on Homeland security, Leadership that preaches restructuring but enjoys monopoly in Niger delta sea ports? Atiku is a walking scam, may we not walk into the scam called Atiku because of lies peddled and perfected by the same holocausts that landed us in bondage, every scam comes with a loud noise, say No to Atiku, we cant move from Abacha loot to Atiku loot at this perilous time. Fraudulent Leadership that wants to sell 90% of NNPC robbing us of 74% of our forex needs, Leadership that wants to spend $90b annually building infrastructures when Nigeria earns less than $30b annually. It will be very dangerous and retrogressive to have a leader that is in bad terms with the international community, remember that the united states is the Fulcrum of our war against insurgency, one will argue that if America doesn't sell arms to us we go to Russia, the world works differently now under Donald trump, ask yourself, why did Jonathan not go to those people when America sanctioned him under the Leahy's ban? Yet he sat idly and watched Boko haram slaughter tens of thousands eventually took LGA's? American ban is as good as a global ban, recall how South Africa seized funds Jonathan wanted to use for arms purchase, please dont ask me what is South Africa's business with a US ban, that is how the world works. In 2017, the US congress passed a law called Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, CAATSA to promote the America first agenda while sanctioning countries that do business with American's enemies. If Atiku (God forbid) becomes the president as much as thinks about going to Russia for help, Nigeria will end up in CAATSA web, and that is when the true Hunger will manifest. Can you live under a US sanction like North Korea and Iran? can you live with a Boko haram that is out of control? A boko haram that once bombed Abuja for fun but Today the once Almighty Shekau is in hiding? what about other support we get from the US like the USAID? free immunization? Polio prevention? HIV and AIDS vaccines? Machinery and oil and gas technologies etc? are you willing to throw away all these because of a criminal whose greed led him to commit atrocities in the United states or hate for Buhari that is built on lies? When faced with these realities, Atiku will never achieve anything, rather he will steal what we have left and disappear like he did in the US. May God help us!! Watch Peter obi summarize this analysis https://twitter.com/i/status/1058007016810123264 3 Likes 2 Shares |
| Politics › Re: Fg’s Plot To Use Release Of Leah Sharibu For Political Gains Uncovered by jpphilips(m): 6:24am On Feb 11, 2019 |
IS BUHARI TRULY RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR ECONOMIC WOES? A lot have been said about Buhari, how he brought hardship on Nigerians, how he is responsible for all the suffering in Nigeria, is that theory backed with facts and global economic realities or the shenanigans of few individuals basking in the Euphoria of ignorance? Since I must make a choice between our present loud political gladiators, I armed myself with Economics textbooks and news archive, here is what i discovered. Nigeria an oil producing and oil dependent economy suffered a global economic hit called crude oil price shock it is the sudden drop in price of crude oil in the commodity trading market, it has occurred at different times in History nearly every decade. Countries that are hardest hit by crude shock are basically countries that not only produce crude oil in significant amount but solely depend on it as their foreign exchange earner. While oil shocks have asymmetric effects in oil-exporting developing countries; lower oil prices lead to major revenue cuts and ensuing stagnation in the economy, but higher oil prices and accompanying higher revenues do not translate into sustained economic growth. What are the effects of crude shock in oil producing developing economies? Forex scarcity: Most developing economies whether oil producing or not, depend on importation to survive, where foreign currency becomes scarce, industries, individuals that have significant need for forex will likely close shops giving birth to the second problem unemployment then finally the master Recession. Unemployment: When industries no longer have forex to buy spare parts, can no longer afford raw materials, production slows, sales slows, profit eroded, workers sacked, since the volume of activities in the economy is directly proportional to the GDP, the GDP contracts and birth another economic monster Recession. Recession is a chain reaction of unpalatable economic events that shows the economy is not experiencing growth but contracting, lets look at the effects of recession, high energy cost (energy in most developing economies are subsidized one way or another) crude shock and eventually recession erodes government revenues till a point where it could no longer afford subsidies and other things it used to afford. In Nigeria where our Electricity Generation companies are subsidized, petroleum products are subsidized,you will understand that such partial or complete subsidy removal will quickly skyrocket the cost of living generally, transportation, cost of food etc are equally affected that leads to another monster called Inflation. Inflation: is defined as a phenomenon where huge bills are in search of few goods, how is that possible? when the industries that produce goods closed down, imports could not be sustained due to Forex shortages where will the goods come from? the absence of those goods while the bills remain triggers inflation, causes hunger and eventually poverty and devaluation of local currency. Devaluation is when global reserve currencies trade higher than your currency, of course you recall that an economy in crude shock first suffers Forex shortages, that robs the central bank (in the case of Nigeria) the ability to fix the currency at a reasonable exchange rate. The local currency is allowed to float along a band the cbn thinks may not be too hurtful on the economy. Forex ban is placed on certain commodities, debit cards like Visa, Mastercard et al are all placed on monthly transaction limits as a reflection of the reality of forex shortages. Okonjo iweala then finance minister and coordinator of the economy actually warned Nigerians in 2014 long before buhari came that the level of mismanagement will bring hunger to us, read here: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/business/171145-brace-tougher-times-ahead-okonjo-iweala-tells-nigerians.html If okonjo iweala saw this hunger in 2014, warned us about it, how can a sane person accuse buhari of bringing hardship? Between 2015-2017, all these happened in the Nigerian economy, then I asked "are we the only oil dependent economies in the world? why us alone? The answer took me to several countries in the world and I realized that other oil producing countries dont depend on oil alone, countries like Russia though the largest producer of crude oil in the world, has a robust defense industry that contribute significantly to its GDP, Russia equally enjoys large market shares in Gas distribution in Eurasia, by the time crude oil shock hit, Russia had over $400b in reserves, It became clear that the only economic move that could hold off crude oil shock and other global economic shocks is a robust foreign exchange reserves (Savings). Permit me to take you down our economic history, in 2008 during the global melt down, the then CBN governor prof. Chukwuma Charles soludo bragged that the Nigerian economy is immune to global shocks? That would have sounded ridiculous but it is true, what did he do? they launched an economic strategy called National Economic Empowerment And Development Strategy NEEDS. This strategy recommended that once crude oil is sold, the balance above the budget benchmark is kept in an account called the ECA, by the time that government left and another took over in 2007, both the ECA & Foreign reserve account held over $68b in reserves, in a $200b economy at the time, that reserve was significant enough to whither any storm that came the way of our economy, Much later into the crisis, Nigeria later relaxed its exchange rate to 155 to a dollar. now we know that Nigeria had in the past stood resilience in the face of global shocks with a culture of Savings. Global economic meltdown is worse than crude shock because in a meltdown, major economies are affected, capital flight becomes common in developing economies, crude oil customers reduce demand thereby pushing prices lower, the saddest part is that no country has money to borrow anyone during global meltdown, yet Nigeria Survived it with Soludo's brilliant strategy. A strategy that was blatantly refused by the previous administration when suggested by Iweala, recall that Iweala worked with Soludo in that NEEDS team. Fast forward to 2015, Three out of the top four producers of crude oil in Africa by their production, Nigeria, Angola, Algeria and Egypt were all in recession even though Egypt does not significantly depend on oil but her economy was shattered. Algeria escaped recession because by 2014, just like Nigeria in 2008, Algeria had a foreign reserve balance of $194b in a $156.1b economy (122% of GDP in savings).You can see that the Robust reserve of Algeria was their savior in this modern crude oil shock era. The previous administration in Nigeria boasted of leaving behind a paltry $19b for a $500b economy at the time (3.8% of GDP), that amount is not even enough to pay for imports let alone absorb global shocks, so Nigeria can be rightly described in late 2014 as an oil dependent economy with no savings. How important is this savings? Lets take our research to the Second largest producer of crude oil Angola, just like Nigeria with no significant savings, Angola's challenges needs no introduction, let facts speak for itself Angola suffered severe Forex & currency challenges just like Nigeria. According to Bloomberg They not only devalued their currency, they equally allowed it to float like Nigeria's Angola devalued its currency as the OPEC member sought to revive an economy still reeling from the oil-price crash four years ago. The kwanza fell 11 percent to 187.95 per dollar by 3:35 p.m. in Luanda and depreciated 10 percent to 221.75 against the euro. The move came a day after the central bank allowed the currency to weaken in its first auction of foreign exchange since announcing it would end a dollar peg that’s been in place since April 2016.....BloombergBorrowing to fund Budget deficits, just like Nigeria, Angola has borrowed to the point of requesting a bail out from the IMF https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/08/angola-says-to-request-4-5-bn-imf-loan-as-crisis-lingers/ Unemployment Rate in Angola increased to 20 percent in 2017 from 19.90 percent in 2016. https://tradingeconomics.com/angola/unemployment-rate Inflation in Angola was a whooping 23.67 percent in December 2017, data on the national statistics agency's website showed on Wednesday. Price growth on a month-on-month basis rose to 1.47 percent in January from 1.2 percent previously. Poverty in Angola According to Angola's 2001 MPI, more than 77% of the population was multidimensionally poor. ... The latest available World Bank figure for income poverty in Angola, from 2008, shows that 36.6% of the population is income poor. Angola's population is currently estimated at 29.7 million. I can go on and on the list is endless, as a matter of undeniable fact, Angola just like Nigeria are the largest producers in Africa, they practically did not save enough and they were hit hard by crude price shock. to balance the analysis, it will be unfair to discuss those that didn't save without giving kudos to those that saved, like i said previously, Algeria saved a whooping $194b when the going was good, as such its economy was immune to crude shock. Russia like we said though had currency challenges during the period under review ostensibly because of western sanctions, Russia had over $400b in reserves by ending of 2014. Saudi Arabia was immune to crude shock not without little currency & subsidy issues ostensibly because of its huge financing of the war in Yemen, they were sitting on a comfortable $732b by the end of 2014. My country men, you can see that this suffering was brought upon us by mismanagement by the same people that are warming up to continue from where fate has left us, if buhari had $100b in our foreign reserve in 2015, we wont be hungry today, we wont lose our jobs, we wont lose our manufacturing industries, this is the truth that shall set us free! Some even blamed it on Avengers attack of 2016 Niger delta avengers was a non issue, if you noticed, I expunged them from my initial analysis, here is why; We were in crude shock from late 2014, Avengers struck in 2016, since 2014, your GDP wasn't showing any growth but retrogression or doldrums meaning you were heading towards recession anyways as a result of crude shock. If Avengers did not strike, OPEC would have asked us to cut production to boost prices, read: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-28/opec-said-to-agree-on-first-oil-output-cut-in-eight-years So Avengers or any form of production cut at the time was a non issue. OPEC gave us production cut waiver because Nigeria has already declared force-majore in most of its crude oil export channels. Nigerian people, what is your present government doing to stem this tide that has shocked the fabrics of our nation to the Marrow? The vice president being the economic manager of the country Launched the ERGP, with it Nigeria even in recession was able to save $47b in our foreign reserve, at this pace, I have no doubt that this money will hit $100b in the next 4yrs, that is a guarantee that our economy will become immune to global shocks once again, not just crude shocks alone. (Algerian model) The moment that money crossed $40b mark, forex shortages disappeared, importers stopped complaining, manufacturers stopped complaining of dollar scarcity, debit cards relaxed their limits etc, that was a killer stroke in our economic recovery strategy, inflation immediately responded to the potency of the ERGP from 18.8% in 2017 to 11.23% in 2018. This reserve will boost investors confidence that the economy is liquid enough for profit repatriation, that is how the jobs will return, job creation is private sector driven, not govt. Among the three oil dependent economies in Africa that landed in recession within the same period, Nigeria was the first to exit recession, that was historical & mind blowing, despite fighting terrorism and with a massive population, we did it first before any other country. By Blocking loopholes Our Federal allocation that used to be a misery 311b naira in june 2016 is between 600-700b naira in presently. This volume if held steady will continue providing liquidity that will surely inflate the economy. Nigeria is building a Gas liquefying plant called the NLNG train 7 project, that will in a way increase revenue from Gas against depending on oil alone, there are other ongoing Gas projects like the AKK projects and other Gas for power projects, rightly put, the economy is being diversified towards gas. (Russian model) https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/07/nnpc-signs-agreement-for-seven-critical-gas-projects/ As you can see here, Manufacturing is gradually expanding, next will be jobs returning on its own https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2018/07/08/cbn-at-57-0-pmi-manufacturing-sector-expanded-in-june/amp/ We don't need Atiku's stealing to truncate an economic process already in recovery. In conclusion, I can state for a fact that the economic challenges of this country has nothing to do with Buhari under the circumstances he met on ground, we have a chance to fix culpability of blames where it rightly belongs on crude shock, or replace this government whose framework seems promising with another leadership of questionable integrity. Buhari is like a mechanic that was given a car to fix, only for the car owner to accuse him of being the problem of the car when he is yet to fix anything. We shall never go back to past governments whose inaction landed us in this mess in the first place. leadership in the past that we tasked to privatize our establishments, all failed save for the one that ended up in his pocket, yet he claimed to create Jobs? How many jobs were lost in that privatization scam where 56 government entities perished? Where is our NITEL, ALSCON, Nicon Insurance to mention a few? Leadership that claims to create jobs but his company PRODECO folded up? Leadership that claim to create jobs yet it was Buhari that sacked foreigners littered everywhere in his company, does an ordinary logistics company need that much foreigners? Leadership that is a case study for corruption and money laundering by the US Senate committee on Homeland security, Leadership that preaches restructuring but enjoys monopoly in Niger delta sea ports? Atiku is a walking scam, may we not walk into the scam called Atiku because of lies peddled and perfected by the same holocausts that landed us in bondage, every scam comes with a loud noise, say No to Atiku, we cant move from Abacha loot to Atiku loot at this perilous time. Fraudulent Leadership that wants to sell 90% of NNPC robbing us of 74% of our forex needs, Leadership that wants to spend $90b annually building infrastructures when Nigeria earns less than $30b annually. It will be very dangerous and retrogressive to have a leader that is in bad terms with the international community, remember that the united states is the Fulcrum of our war against insurgency, one will argue that if America doesn't sell arms to us we go to Russia, the world works differently now under Donald trump, ask yourself, why did Jonathan not go to those people when America sanctioned him under the Leahy's ban? Yet he sat idly and watched Boko haram slaughter tens of thousands eventually took LGA's? American ban is as good as a global ban, recall how South Africa seized funds Jonathan wanted to use for arms purchase, please dont ask me what is South Africa's business with a US ban, that is how the world works. In 2017, the US congress passed a law called Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, CAATSA to promote the America first agenda while sanctioning countries that do business with American's enemies. If Atiku (God forbid) becomes the president as much as thinks about going to Russia for help, Nigeria will end up in CAATSA web, and that is when the true Hunger will manifest. Can you live under a US sanction like North Korea and Iran? can you live with a Boko haram that is out of control? A boko haram that once bombed Abuja for fun but Today the once Almighty Shekau is in hiding? what about other support we get from the US like the USAID? free immunization? Polio prevention? HIV and AIDS vaccines? Machinery and oil and gas technologies etc? are you willing to throw away all these because of a criminal whose greed led him to commit atrocities in the United states or hate for Buhari that is built on lies? When faced with these realities, Atiku will never achieve anything, rather he will steal what we have left and disappear like he did in the US. May God help us!! Watch Peter obi summarize this analysis https://twitter.com/i/status/1058007016810123264 3 Likes 1 Share |
| Politics › Re: Your Presidency Reeks Of Corruption - PDP Tells Buhari by jpphilips(m): 6:22am On Feb 11, 2019 |
IS BUHARI TRULY RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR ECONOMIC WOES? A lot have been said about Buhari, how he brought hardship on Nigerians, how he is responsible for all the suffering in Nigeria, is that theory backed with facts and global economic realities or the shenanigans of few individuals basking in the Euphoria of ignorance? Since I must make a choice between our present loud political gladiators, I armed myself with Economics textbooks and news archive, here is what i discovered. Nigeria an oil producing and oil dependent economy suffered a global economic hit called crude oil price shock it is the sudden drop in price of crude oil in the commodity trading market, it has occurred at different times in History nearly every decade. Countries that are hardest hit by crude shock are basically countries that not only produce crude oil in significant amount but solely depend on it as their foreign exchange earner. While oil shocks have asymmetric effects in oil-exporting developing countries; lower oil prices lead to major revenue cuts and ensuing stagnation in the economy, but higher oil prices and accompanying higher revenues do not translate into sustained economic growth. What are the effects of crude shock in oil producing developing economies? Forex scarcity: Most developing economies whether oil producing or not, depend on importation to survive, where foreign currency becomes scarce, industries, individuals that have significant need for forex will likely close shops giving birth to the second problem unemployment then finally the master Recession. Unemployment: When industries no longer have forex to buy spare parts, can no longer afford raw materials, production slows, sales slows, profit eroded, workers sacked, since the volume of activities in the economy is directly proportional to the GDP, the GDP contracts and birth another economic monster Recession. Recession is a chain reaction of unpalatable economic events that shows the economy is not experiencing growth but contracting, lets look at the effects of recession, high energy cost (energy in most developing economies are subsidized one way or another) crude shock and eventually recession erodes government revenues till a point where it could no longer afford subsidies and other things it used to afford. In Nigeria where our Electricity Generation companies are subsidized, petroleum products are subsidized,you will understand that such partial or complete subsidy removal will quickly skyrocket the cost of living generally, transportation, cost of food etc are equally affected that leads to another monster called Inflation. Inflation: is defined as a phenomenon where huge bills are in search of few goods, how is that possible? when the industries that produce goods closed down, imports could not be sustained due to Forex shortages where will the goods come from? the absence of those goods while the bills remain triggers inflation, causes hunger and eventually poverty and devaluation of local currency. Devaluation is when global reserve currencies trade higher than your currency, of course you recall that an economy in crude shock first suffers Forex shortages, that robs the central bank (in the case of Nigeria) the ability to fix the currency at a reasonable exchange rate. The local currency is allowed to float along a band the cbn thinks may not be too hurtful on the economy. Forex ban is placed on certain commodities, debit cards like Visa, Mastercard et al are all placed on monthly transaction limits as a reflection of the reality of forex shortages. Okonjo iweala then finance minister and coordinator of the economy actually warned Nigerians in 2014 long before buhari came that the level of mismanagement will bring hunger to us, read here: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/business/171145-brace-tougher-times-ahead-okonjo-iweala-tells-nigerians.html If okonjo iweala saw this hunger in 2014, warned us about it, how can a sane person accuse buhari of bringing hardship? Between 2015-2017, all these happened in the Nigerian economy, then I asked "are we the only oil dependent economies in the world? why us alone? The answer took me to several countries in the world and I realized that other oil producing countries dont depend on oil alone, countries like Russia though the largest producer of crude oil in the world, has a robust defense industry that contribute significantly to its GDP, Russia equally enjoys large market shares in Gas distribution in Eurasia, by the time crude oil shock hit, Russia had over $400b in reserves, It became clear that the only economic move that could hold off crude oil shock and other global economic shocks is a robust foreign exchange reserves (Savings). Permit me to take you down our economic history, in 2008 during the global melt down, the then CBN governor prof. Chukwuma Charles soludo bragged that the Nigerian economy is immune to global shocks? That would have sounded ridiculous but it is true, what did he do? they launched an economic strategy called National Economic Empowerment And Development Strategy NEEDS. This strategy recommended that once crude oil is sold, the balance above the budget benchmark is kept in an account called the ECA, by the time that government left and another took over in 2007, both the ECA & Foreign reserve account held over $68b in reserves, in a $200b economy at the time, that reserve was significant enough to whither any storm that came the way of our economy, Much later into the crisis, Nigeria later relaxed its exchange rate to 155 to a dollar. now we know that Nigeria had in the past stood resilience in the face of global shocks with a culture of Savings. Global economic meltdown is worse than crude shock because in a meltdown, major economies are affected, capital flight becomes common in developing economies, crude oil customers reduce demand thereby pushing prices lower, the saddest part is that no country has money to borrow anyone during global meltdown, yet Nigeria Survived it with Soludo's brilliant strategy. A strategy that was blatantly refused by the previous administration when suggested by Iweala, recall that Iweala worked with Soludo in that NEEDS team. Fast forward to 2015, Three out of the top four producers of crude oil in Africa by their production, Nigeria, Angola, Algeria and Egypt were all in recession even though Egypt does not significantly depend on oil but her economy was shattered. Algeria escaped recession because by 2014, just like Nigeria in 2008, Algeria had a foreign reserve balance of $194b in a $156.1b economy (122% of GDP in savings).You can see that the Robust reserve of Algeria was their savior in this modern crude oil shock era. The previous administration in Nigeria boasted of leaving behind a paltry $19b for a $500b economy at the time (3.8% of GDP), that amount is not even enough to pay for imports let alone absorb global shocks, so Nigeria can be rightly described in late 2014 as an oil dependent economy with no savings. How important is this savings? Lets take our research to the Second largest producer of crude oil Angola, just like Nigeria with no significant savings, Angola's challenges needs no introduction, let facts speak for itself Angola suffered severe Forex & currency challenges just like Nigeria. According to Bloomberg They not only devalued their currency, they equally allowed it to float like Nigeria's Angola devalued its currency as the OPEC member sought to revive an economy still reeling from the oil-price crash four years ago. The kwanza fell 11 percent to 187.95 per dollar by 3:35 p.m. in Luanda and depreciated 10 percent to 221.75 against the euro. The move came a day after the central bank allowed the currency to weaken in its first auction of foreign exchange since announcing it would end a dollar peg that’s been in place since April 2016.....BloombergBorrowing to fund Budget deficits, just like Nigeria, Angola has borrowed to the point of requesting a bail out from the IMF https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/08/angola-says-to-request-4-5-bn-imf-loan-as-crisis-lingers/ Unemployment Rate in Angola increased to 20 percent in 2017 from 19.90 percent in 2016. https://tradingeconomics.com/angola/unemployment-rate Inflation in Angola was a whooping 23.67 percent in December 2017, data on the national statistics agency's website showed on Wednesday. Price growth on a month-on-month basis rose to 1.47 percent in January from 1.2 percent previously. Poverty in Angola According to Angola's 2001 MPI, more than 77% of the population was multidimensionally poor. ... The latest available World Bank figure for income poverty in Angola, from 2008, shows that 36.6% of the population is income poor. Angola's population is currently estimated at 29.7 million. I can go on and on the list is endless, as a matter of undeniable fact, Angola just like Nigeria are the largest producers in Africa, they practically did not save enough and they were hit hard by crude price shock. to balance the analysis, it will be unfair to discuss those that didn't save without giving kudos to those that saved, like i said previously, Algeria saved a whooping $194b when the going was good, as such its economy was immune to crude shock. Russia like we said though had currency challenges during the period under review ostensibly because of western sanctions, Russia had over $400b in reserves by ending of 2014. Saudi Arabia was immune to crude shock not without little currency & subsidy issues ostensibly because of its huge financing of the war in Yemen, they were sitting on a comfortable $732b by the end of 2014. My country men, you can see that this suffering was brought upon us by mismanagement by the same people that are warming up to continue from where fate has left us, if buhari had $100b in our foreign reserve in 2015, we wont be hungry today, we wont lose our jobs, we wont lose our manufacturing industries, this is the truth that shall set us free! Some even blamed it on Avengers attack of 2016 Niger delta avengers was a non issue, if you noticed, I expunged them from my initial analysis, here is why; We were in crude shock from late 2014, Avengers struck in 2016, since 2014, your GDP wasn't showing any growth but retrogression or doldrums meaning you were heading towards recession anyways as a result of crude shock. If Avengers did not strike, OPEC would have asked us to cut production to boost prices, read: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-28/opec-said-to-agree-on-first-oil-output-cut-in-eight-years So Avengers or any form of production cut at the time was a non issue. OPEC gave us production cut waiver because Nigeria has already declared force-majore in most of its crude oil export channels. Nigerian people, what is your present government doing to stem this tide that has shocked the fabrics of our nation to the Marrow? The vice president being the economic manager of the country Launched the ERGP, with it Nigeria even in recession was able to save $47b in our foreign reserve, at this pace, I have no doubt that this money will hit $100b in the next 4yrs, that is a guarantee that our economy will become immune to global shocks once again, not just crude shocks alone. (Algerian model) The moment that money crossed $40b mark, forex shortages disappeared, importers stopped complaining, manufacturers stopped complaining of dollar scarcity, debit cards relaxed their limits etc, that was a killer stroke in our economic recovery strategy, inflation immediately responded to the potency of the ERGP from 18.8% in 2017 to 11.23% in 2018. This reserve will boost investors confidence that the economy is liquid enough for profit repatriation, that is how the jobs will return, job creation is private sector driven, not govt. Among the three oil dependent economies in Africa that landed in recession within the same period, Nigeria was the first to exit recession, that was historical & mind blowing, despite fighting terrorism and with a massive population, we did it first before any other country. By Blocking loopholes Our Federal allocation that used to be a misery 311b naira in june 2016 is between 600-700b naira in presently. This volume if held steady will continue providing liquidity that will surely inflate the economy. Nigeria is building a Gas liquefying plant called the NLNG train 7 project, that will in a way increase revenue from Gas against depending on oil alone, there are other ongoing Gas projects like the AKK projects and other Gas for power projects, rightly put, the economy is being diversified towards gas. (Russian model) https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/07/nnpc-signs-agreement-for-seven-critical-gas-projects/ As you can see here, Manufacturing is gradually expanding, next will be jobs returning on its own https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2018/07/08/cbn-at-57-0-pmi-manufacturing-sector-expanded-in-june/amp/ We don't need Atiku's stealing to truncate an economic process already in recovery. In conclusion, I can state for a fact that the economic challenges of this country has nothing to do with Buhari under the circumstances he met on ground, we have a chance to fix culpability of blames where it rightly belongs on crude shock, or replace this government whose framework seems promising with another leadership of questionable integrity. Buhari is like a mechanic that was given a car to fix, only for the car owner to accuse him of being the problem of the car when he is yet to fix anything. We shall never go back to past governments whose inaction landed us in this mess in the first place. leadership in the past that we tasked to privatize our establishments, all failed save for the one that ended up in his pocket, yet he claimed to create Jobs? How many jobs were lost in that privatization scam where 56 government entities perished? Where is our NITEL, ALSCON, Nicon Insurance to mention a few? Leadership that claims to create jobs but his company PRODECO folded up? Leadership that claim to create jobs yet it was Buhari that sacked foreigners littered everywhere in his company, does an ordinary logistics company need that much foreigners? Leadership that is a case study for corruption and money laundering by the US Senate committee on Homeland security, Leadership that preaches restructuring but enjoys monopoly in Niger delta sea ports? Atiku is a walking scam, may we not walk into the scam called Atiku because of lies peddled and perfected by the same holocausts that landed us in bondage, every scam comes with a loud noise, say No to Atiku, we cant move from Abacha loot to Atiku loot at this perilous time. Fraudulent Leadership that wants to sell 90% of NNPC robbing us of 74% of our forex needs, Leadership that wants to spend $90b annually building infrastructures when Nigeria earns less than $30b annually. It will be very dangerous and retrogressive to have a leader that is in bad terms with the international community, remember that the united states is the Fulcrum of our war against insurgency, one will argue that if America doesn't sell arms to us we go to Russia, the world works differently now under Donald trump, ask yourself, why did Jonathan not go to those people when America sanctioned him under the Leahy's ban? Yet he sat idly and watched Boko haram slaughter tens of thousands eventually took LGA's? American ban is as good as a global ban, recall how South Africa seized funds Jonathan wanted to use for arms purchase, please dont ask me what is South Africa's business with a US ban, that is how the world works. In 2017, the US congress passed a law called Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, CAATSA to promote the America first agenda while sanctioning countries that do business with American's enemies. If Atiku (God forbid) becomes the president as much as thinks about going to Russia for help, Nigeria will end up in CAATSA web, and that is when the true Hunger will manifest. Can you live under a US sanction like North Korea and Iran? can you live with a Boko haram that is out of control? A boko haram that once bombed Abuja for fun but Today the once Almighty Shekau is in hiding? what about other support we get from the US like the USAID? free immunization? Polio prevention? HIV and AIDS vaccines? Machinery and oil and gas technologies etc? are you willing to throw away all these because of a criminal whose greed led him to commit atrocities in the United states or hate for Buhari that is built on lies? When faced with these realities, Atiku will never achieve anything, rather he will steal what we have left and disappear like he did in the US. May God help us!! Watch Peter obi summarize this analysis https://twitter.com/i/status/1058007016810123264 2 Likes 1 Share |
| Politics › Re: I Am Voting Atiku And This Is Why - Bayo Adeyinka by jpphilips(m): 10:40pm On Feb 10, 2019 |
IS BUHARI TRULY RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR ECONOMIC WOES? A lot have been said about Buhari, how he brought hardship on Nigerians, how he is responsible for all the suffering in Nigeria, is that theory backed with facts and global economic realities or the shenanigans of few individuals basking in the Euphoria of ignorance? Since I must make a choice between our present loud political gladiators, I armed myself with Economics textbooks and news archive, here is what i discovered. Nigeria an oil producing and oil dependent economy suffered a global economic hit called crude oil price shock it is the sudden drop in price of crude oil in the commodity trading market, it has occurred at different times in History nearly every decade. Countries that are hardest hit by crude shock are basically countries that not only produce crude oil in significant amount but solely depend on it as their foreign exchange earner. While oil shocks have asymmetric effects in oil-exporting developing countries; lower oil prices lead to major revenue cuts and ensuing stagnation in the economy, but higher oil prices and accompanying higher revenues do not translate into sustained economic growth. What are the effects of crude shock in oil producing developing economies? Forex scarcity: Most developing economies whether oil producing or not, depend on importation to survive, where foreign currency becomes scarce, industries, individuals that have significant need for forex will likely close shops giving birth to the second problem unemployment then finally the master Recession. Unemployment: When industries no longer have forex to buy spare parts, can no longer afford raw materials, production slows, sales slows, profit eroded, workers sacked, since the volume of activities in the economy is directly proportional to the GDP, the GDP contracts and birth another economic monster Recession. Recession is a chain reaction of unpalatable economic events that shows the economy is not experiencing growth but contracting, lets look at the effects of recession, high energy cost (energy in most developing economies are subsidized one way or another) crude shock and eventually recession erodes government revenues till a point where it could no longer afford subsidies and other things it used to afford. In Nigeria where our Electricity Generation companies are subsidized, petroleum products are subsidized,you will understand that such partial or complete subsidy removal will quickly skyrocket the cost of living generally, transportation, cost of food etc are equally affected that leads to another monster called Inflation. Inflation: is defined as a phenomenon where huge bills are in search of few goods, how is that possible? when the industries that produce goods closed down, imports could not be sustained due to Forex shortages where will the goods come from? the absence of those goods while the bills remain triggers inflation, causes hunger and eventually poverty and devaluation of local currency. Devaluation is when global reserve currencies trade higher than your currency, of course you recall that an economy in crude shock first suffers Forex shortages, that robs the central bank (in the case of Nigeria) the ability to fix the currency at a reasonable exchange rate. The local currency is allowed to float along a band the cbn thinks may not be too hurtful on the economy. Forex ban is placed on certain commodities, debit cards like Visa, Mastercard et al are all placed on monthly transaction limits as a reflection of the reality of forex shortages. Okonjo iweala then finance minister and coordinator of the economy actually warned Nigerians in 2014 long before buhari came that the level of mismanagement will bring hunger to us, read here: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/business/171145-brace-tougher-times-ahead-okonjo-iweala-tells-nigerians.html If okonjo iweala saw this hunger in 2014, warned us about it, how can a sane person accuse buhari of bringing hardship? Between 2015-2017, all these happened in the Nigerian economy, then I asked "are we the only oil dependent economies in the world? why us alone? The answer took me to several countries in the world and I realized that other oil producing countries dont depend on oil alone, countries like Russia though the largest producer of crude oil in the world, has a robust defense industry that contribute significantly to its GDP, Russia equally enjoys large market shares in Gas distribution in Eurasia, by the time crude oil shock hit, Russia had over $400b in reserves, It became clear that the only economic move that could hold off crude oil shock and other global economic shocks is a robust foreign exchange reserves (Savings). Permit me to take you down our economic history, in 2008 during the global melt down, the then CBN governor prof. Chukwuma Charles soludo bragged that the Nigerian economy is immune to global shocks? That would have sounded ridiculous but it is true, what did he do? they launched an economic strategy called National Economic Empowerment And Development Strategy NEEDS. This strategy recommended that once crude oil is sold, the balance above the budget benchmark is kept in an account called the ECA, by the time that government left and another took over in 2007, both the ECA & Foreign reserve account held over $68b in reserves, in a $200b economy at the time, that reserve was significant enough to whither any storm that came the way of our economy, Much later into the crisis, Nigeria later relaxed its exchange rate to 155 to a dollar. now we know that Nigeria had in the past stood resilience in the face of global shocks with a culture of Savings. Global economic meltdown is worse than crude shock because in a meltdown, major economies are affected, capital flight becomes common in developing economies, crude oil customers reduce demand thereby pushing prices lower, the saddest part is that no country has money to borrow anyone during global meltdown, yet Nigeria Survived it with Soludo's brilliant strategy. A strategy that was blatantly refused by the previous administration when suggested by Iweala, recall that Iweala worked with Soludo in that NEEDS team. Fast forward to 2015, Three out of the top four producers of crude oil in Africa by their production, Nigeria, Angola, Algeria and Egypt were all in recession even though Egypt does not significantly depend on oil but her economy was shattered. Algeria escaped recession because by 2014, just like Nigeria in 2008, Algeria had a foreign reserve balance of $194b in a $156.1b economy (122% of GDP in savings).You can see that the Robust reserve of Algeria was their savior in this modern crude oil shock era. The previous administration in Nigeria boasted of leaving behind a paltry $19b for a $500b economy at the time (3.8% of GDP), that amount is not even enough to pay for imports let alone absorb global shocks, so Nigeria can be rightly described in late 2014 as an oil dependent economy with no savings. How important is this savings? Lets take our research to the Second largest producer of crude oil Angola, just like Nigeria with no significant savings, Angola's challenges needs no introduction, let facts speak for itself Angola suffered severe Forex & currency challenges just like Nigeria. According to Bloomberg They not only devalued their currency, they equally allowed it to float like Nigeria's Angola devalued its currency as the OPEC member sought to revive an economy still reeling from the oil-price crash four years ago. The kwanza fell 11 percent to 187.95 per dollar by 3:35 p.m. in Luanda and depreciated 10 percent to 221.75 against the euro. The move came a day after the central bank allowed the currency to weaken in its first auction of foreign exchange since announcing it would end a dollar peg that’s been in place since April 2016.....BloombergBorrowing to fund Budget deficits, just like Nigeria, Angola has borrowed to the point of requesting a bail out from the IMF https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/08/angola-says-to-request-4-5-bn-imf-loan-as-crisis-lingers/ Unemployment Rate in Angola increased to 20 percent in 2017 from 19.90 percent in 2016. https://tradingeconomics.com/angola/unemployment-rate Inflation in Angola was a whooping 23.67 percent in December 2017, data on the national statistics agency's website showed on Wednesday. Price growth on a month-on-month basis rose to 1.47 percent in January from 1.2 percent previously. Poverty in Angola According to Angola's 2001 MPI, more than 77% of the population was multidimensionally poor. ... The latest available World Bank figure for income poverty in Angola, from 2008, shows that 36.6% of the population is income poor. Angola's population is currently estimated at 29.7 million. I can go on and on the list is endless, as a matter of undeniable fact, Angola just like Nigeria are the largest producers in Africa, they practically did not save enough and they were hit hard by crude price shock. to balance the analysis, it will be unfair to discuss those that didn't save without giving kudos to those that saved, like i said previously, Algeria saved a whooping $194b when the going was good, as such its economy was immune to crude shock. Russia like we said though had currency challenges during the period under review ostensibly because of western sanctions, Russia had over $400b in reserves by ending of 2014. Saudi Arabia was immune to crude shock not without little currency & subsidy issues ostensibly because of its huge financing of the war in Yemen, they were sitting on a comfortable $732b by the end of 2014. My country men, you can see that this suffering was brought upon us by mismanagement by the same people that are warming up to continue from where fate has left us, if buhari had $100b in our foreign reserve in 2015, we wont be hungry today, we wont lose our jobs, we wont lose our manufacturing industries, this is the truth that shall set us free! Some even blamed it on Avengers attack of 2016 Niger delta avengers was a non issue, if you noticed, I expunged them from my initial analysis, here is why; We were in crude shock from late 2014, Avengers struck in 2016, since 2014, your GDP wasn't showing any growth but retrogression or doldrums meaning you were heading towards recession anyways as a result of crude shock. If Avengers did not strike, OPEC would have asked us to cut production to boost prices, read: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-28/opec-said-to-agree-on-first-oil-output-cut-in-eight-years So Avengers or any form of production cut at the time was a non issue. OPEC gave us production cut waiver because Nigeria has already declared force-majore in most of its crude oil export channels. Nigerian people, what is your present government doing to stem this tide that has shocked the fabrics of our nation to the Marrow? The vice president being the economic manager of the country Launched the ERGP, with it Nigeria even in recession was able to save $47b in our foreign reserve, at this pace, I have no doubt that this money will hit $100b in the next 4yrs, that is a guarantee that our economy will become immune to global shocks once again, not just crude shocks alone. (Algerian model) The moment that money crossed $40b mark, forex shortages disappeared, importers stopped complaining, manufacturers stopped complaining of dollar scarcity, debit cards relaxed their limits etc, that was a killer stroke in our economic recovery strategy, inflation immediately responded to the potency of the ERGP from 18.8% in 2017 to 11.23% in 2018. This reserve will boost investors confidence that the economy is liquid enough for profit repatriation, that is how the jobs will return, job creation is private sector driven, not govt. Among the three oil dependent economies in Africa that landed in recession within the same period, Nigeria was the first to exit recession, that was historical & mind blowing, despite fighting terrorism and with a massive population, we did it first before any other country. By Blocking loopholes Our Federal allocation that used to be a misery 311b naira in june 2016 is between 600-700b naira in presently. This volume if held steady will continue providing liquidity that will surely inflate the economy. Nigeria is building a Gas liquefying plant called the NLNG train 7 project, that will in a way increase revenue from Gas against depending on oil alone, there are other ongoing Gas projects like the AKK projects and other Gas for power projects, rightly put, the economy is being diversified towards gas. (Russian model) https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/07/nnpc-signs-agreement-for-seven-critical-gas-projects/ As you can see here, Manufacturing is gradually expanding, next will be jobs returning on its own https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2018/07/08/cbn-at-57-0-pmi-manufacturing-sector-expanded-in-june/amp/ We don't need Atiku's stealing to truncate an economic process already in recovery. In conclusion, I can state for a fact that the economic challenges of this country has nothing to do with Buhari under the circumstances he met on ground, we have a chance to fix culpability of blames where it rightly belongs on crude shock, or replace this government whose framework seems promising with another leadership of questionable integrity. Buhari is like a mechanic that was given a car to fix, only for the car owner to accuse him of being the problem of the car when he is yet to fix anything. We shall never go back to past governments whose inaction landed us in this mess in the first place. leadership in the past that we tasked to privatize our establishments, all failed save for the one that ended up in his pocket, yet he claimed to create Jobs? How many jobs were lost in that privatization scam where 56 government entities perished? Where is our NITEL, ALSCON, Nicon Insurance to mention a few? Leadership that claims to create jobs but his company PRODECO folded up? Leadership that claim to create jobs yet it was Buhari that sacked foreigners littered everywhere in his company, does an ordinary logistics company need that much foreigners? Leadership that is a case study for corruption and money laundering by the US Senate committee on Homeland security, Leadership that preaches restructuring but enjoys monopoly in Niger delta sea ports? Atiku is a walking scam, may we not walk into the scam called Atiku because of lies peddled and perfected by the same holocausts that landed us in bondage, every scam comes with a loud noise, say No to Atiku, we cant move from Abacha loot to Atiku loot at this perilous time. Fraudulent Leadership that wants to sell 90% of NNPC robbing us of 74% of our forex needs, Leadership that wants to spend $90b annually building infrastructures when Nigeria earns less than $30b annually. It will be very dangerous and retrogressive to have a leader that is in bad terms with the international community, remember that the united states is the Fulcrum of our war against insurgency, one will argue that if America doesn't sell arms to us we go to Russia, the world works differently now under Donald trump, ask yourself, why did Jonathan not go to those people when America sanctioned him under the Leahy's ban? Yet he sat idly and watched Boko haram slaughter tens of thousands eventually took LGA's? American ban is as good as a global ban, recall how South Africa seized funds Jonathan wanted to use for arms purchase, please dont ask me what is South Africa's business with a US ban, that is how the world works. In 2017, the US congress passed a law called Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, CAATSA to promote the America first agenda while sanctioning countries that do business with American's enemies. If Atiku (God forbid) becomes the president as much as thinks about going to Russia for help, Nigeria will end up in CAATSA web, and that is when the true Hunger will manifest. Can you live under a US sanction like North Korea and Iran? can you live with a Boko haram that is out of control? A boko haram that once bombed Abuja for fun but Today the once Almighty Shekau is in hiding? what about other support we get from the US like the USAID? free immunization? Polio prevention? HIV and AIDS vaccines? Machinery and oil and gas technologies etc? are you willing to throw away all these because of a criminal whose greed led him to commit atrocities in the United states or hate for Buhari that is built on lies? When faced with these realities, Atiku will never achieve anything, rather he will steal what we have left and disappear like he did in the US. May God help us!! Watch Peter obi summarize this analysis https://twitter.com/i/status/1058007016810123264 3 Likes 2 Shares |
| Politics › Re: Wike Dressed A Goat & Called It Muhammadu Buhari At A Pdp Rally-pics by jpphilips(m): 10:39pm On Feb 10, 2019 |
IS BUHARI TRULY RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR ECONOMIC WOES? A lot have been said about Buhari, how he brought hardship on Nigerians, how he is responsible for all the suffering in Nigeria, is that theory backed with facts and global economic realities or the shenanigans of few individuals basking in the Euphoria of ignorance? Since I must make a choice between our present loud political gladiators, I armed myself with Economics textbooks and news archive, here is what i discovered. Nigeria an oil producing and oil dependent economy suffered a global economic hit called crude oil price shock it is the sudden drop in price of crude oil in the commodity trading market, it has occurred at different times in History nearly every decade. Countries that are hardest hit by crude shock are basically countries that not only produce crude oil in significant amount but solely depend on it as their foreign exchange earner. While oil shocks have asymmetric effects in oil-exporting developing countries; lower oil prices lead to major revenue cuts and ensuing stagnation in the economy, but higher oil prices and accompanying higher revenues do not translate into sustained economic growth. What are the effects of crude shock in oil producing developing economies? Forex scarcity: Most developing economies whether oil producing or not, depend on importation to survive, where foreign currency becomes scarce, industries, individuals that have significant need for forex will likely close shops giving birth to the second problem unemployment then finally the master Recession. Unemployment: When industries no longer have forex to buy spare parts, can no longer afford raw materials, production slows, sales slows, profit eroded, workers sacked, since the volume of activities in the economy is directly proportional to the GDP, the GDP contracts and birth another economic monster Recession. Recession is a chain reaction of unpalatable economic events that shows the economy is not experiencing growth but contracting, lets look at the effects of recession, high energy cost (energy in most developing economies are subsidized one way or another) crude shock and eventually recession erodes government revenues till a point where it could no longer afford subsidies and other things it used to afford. In Nigeria where our Electricity Generation companies are subsidized, petroleum products are subsidized,you will understand that such partial or complete subsidy removal will quickly skyrocket the cost of living generally, transportation, cost of food etc are equally affected that leads to another monster called Inflation. Inflation: is defined as a phenomenon where huge bills are in search of few goods, how is that possible? when the industries that produce goods closed down, imports could not be sustained due to Forex shortages where will the goods come from? the absence of those goods while the bills remain triggers inflation, causes hunger and eventually poverty and devaluation of local currency. Devaluation is when global reserve currencies trade higher than your currency, of course you recall that an economy in crude shock first suffers Forex shortages, that robs the central bank (in the case of Nigeria) the ability to fix the currency at a reasonable exchange rate. The local currency is allowed to float along a band the cbn thinks may not be too hurtful on the economy. Forex ban is placed on certain commodities, debit cards like Visa, Mastercard et al are all placed on monthly transaction limits as a reflection of the reality of forex shortages. Okonjo iweala then finance minister and coordinator of the economy actually warned Nigerians in 2014 long before buhari came that the level of mismanagement will bring hunger to us, read here: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/business/171145-brace-tougher-times-ahead-okonjo-iweala-tells-nigerians.html If okonjo iweala saw this hunger in 2014, warned us about it, how can a sane person accuse buhari of bringing hardship? Between 2015-2017, all these happened in the Nigerian economy, then I asked "are we the only oil dependent economies in the world? why us alone? The answer took me to several countries in the world and I realized that other oil producing countries dont depend on oil alone, countries like Russia though the largest producer of crude oil in the world, has a robust defense industry that contribute significantly to its GDP, Russia equally enjoys large market shares in Gas distribution in Eurasia, by the time crude oil shock hit, Russia had over $400b in reserves, It became clear that the only economic move that could hold off crude oil shock and other global economic shocks is a robust foreign exchange reserves (Savings). Permit me to take you down our economic history, in 2008 during the global melt down, the then CBN governor prof. Chukwuma Charles soludo bragged that the Nigerian economy is immune to global shocks? That would have sounded ridiculous but it is true, what did he do? they launched an economic strategy called National Economic Empowerment And Development Strategy NEEDS. This strategy recommended that once crude oil is sold, the balance above the budget benchmark is kept in an account called the ECA, by the time that government left and another took over in 2007, both the ECA & Foreign reserve account held over $68b in reserves, in a $200b economy at the time, that reserve was significant enough to whither any storm that came the way of our economy, Much later into the crisis, Nigeria later relaxed its exchange rate to 155 to a dollar. now we know that Nigeria had in the past stood resilience in the face of global shocks with a culture of Savings. Global economic meltdown is worse than crude shock because in a meltdown, major economies are affected, capital flight becomes common in developing economies, crude oil customers reduce demand thereby pushing prices lower, the saddest part is that no country has money to borrow anyone during global meltdown, yet Nigeria Survived it with Soludo's brilliant strategy. A strategy that was blatantly refused by the previous administration when suggested by Iweala, recall that Iweala worked with Soludo in that NEEDS team. Fast forward to 2015, Three out of the top four producers of crude oil in Africa by their production, Nigeria, Angola, Algeria and Egypt were all in recession even though Egypt does not significantly depend on oil but her economy was shattered. Algeria escaped recession because by 2014, just like Nigeria in 2008, Algeria had a foreign reserve balance of $194b in a $156.1b economy (122% of GDP in savings).You can see that the Robust reserve of Algeria was their savior in this modern crude oil shock era. The previous administration in Nigeria boasted of leaving behind a paltry $19b for a $500b economy at the time (3.8% of GDP), that amount is not even enough to pay for imports let alone absorb global shocks, so Nigeria can be rightly described in late 2014 as an oil dependent economy with no savings. How important is this savings? Lets take our research to the Second largest producer of crude oil Angola, just like Nigeria with no significant savings, Angola's challenges needs no introduction, let facts speak for itself Angola suffered severe Forex & currency challenges just like Nigeria. According to Bloomberg They not only devalued their currency, they equally allowed it to float like Nigeria's Angola devalued its currency as the OPEC member sought to revive an economy still reeling from the oil-price crash four years ago. The kwanza fell 11 percent to 187.95 per dollar by 3:35 p.m. in Luanda and depreciated 10 percent to 221.75 against the euro. The move came a day after the central bank allowed the currency to weaken in its first auction of foreign exchange since announcing it would end a dollar peg that’s been in place since April 2016.....BloombergBorrowing to fund Budget deficits, just like Nigeria, Angola has borrowed to the point of requesting a bail out from the IMF https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/08/angola-says-to-request-4-5-bn-imf-loan-as-crisis-lingers/ Unemployment Rate in Angola increased to 20 percent in 2017 from 19.90 percent in 2016. https://tradingeconomics.com/angola/unemployment-rate Inflation in Angola was a whooping 23.67 percent in December 2017, data on the national statistics agency's website showed on Wednesday. Price growth on a month-on-month basis rose to 1.47 percent in January from 1.2 percent previously. Poverty in Angola According to Angola's 2001 MPI, more than 77% of the population was multidimensionally poor. ... The latest available World Bank figure for income poverty in Angola, from 2008, shows that 36.6% of the population is income poor. Angola's population is currently estimated at 29.7 million. I can go on and on the list is endless, as a matter of undeniable fact, Angola just like Nigeria are the largest producers in Africa, they practically did not save enough and they were hit hard by crude price shock. to balance the analysis, it will be unfair to discuss those that didn't save without giving kudos to those that saved, like i said previously, Algeria saved a whooping $194b when the going was good, as such its economy was immune to crude shock. Russia like we said though had currency challenges during the period under review ostensibly because of western sanctions, Russia had over $400b in reserves by ending of 2014. Saudi Arabia was immune to crude shock not without little currency & subsidy issues ostensibly because of its huge financing of the war in Yemen, they were sitting on a comfortable $732b by the end of 2014. My country men, you can see that this suffering was brought upon us by mismanagement by the same people that are warming up to continue from where fate has left us, if buhari had $100b in our foreign reserve in 2015, we wont be hungry today, we wont lose our jobs, we wont lose our manufacturing industries, this is the truth that shall set us free! Some even blamed it on Avengers attack of 2016 Niger delta avengers was a non issue, if you noticed, I expunged them from my initial analysis, here is why; We were in crude shock from late 2014, Avengers struck in 2016, since 2014, your GDP wasn't showing any growth but retrogression or doldrums meaning you were heading towards recession anyways as a result of crude shock. If Avengers did not strike, OPEC would have asked us to cut production to boost prices, read: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-28/opec-said-to-agree-on-first-oil-output-cut-in-eight-years So Avengers or any form of production cut at the time was a non issue. OPEC gave us production cut waiver because Nigeria has already declared force-majore in most of its crude oil export channels. Nigerian people, what is your present government doing to stem this tide that has shocked the fabrics of our nation to the Marrow? The vice president being the economic manager of the country Launched the ERGP, with it Nigeria even in recession was able to save $47b in our foreign reserve, at this pace, I have no doubt that this money will hit $100b in the next 4yrs, that is a guarantee that our economy will become immune to global shocks once again, not just crude shocks alone. (Algerian model) The moment that money crossed $40b mark, forex shortages disappeared, importers stopped complaining, manufacturers stopped complaining of dollar scarcity, debit cards relaxed their limits etc, that was a killer stroke in our economic recovery strategy, inflation immediately responded to the potency of the ERGP from 18.8% in 2017 to 11.23% in 2018. This reserve will boost investors confidence that the economy is liquid enough for profit repatriation, that is how the jobs will return, job creation is private sector driven, not govt. Among the three oil dependent economies in Africa that landed in recession within the same period, Nigeria was the first to exit recession, that was historical & mind blowing, despite fighting terrorism and with a massive population, we did it first before any other country. By Blocking loopholes Our Federal allocation that used to be a misery 311b naira in june 2016 is between 600-700b naira in presently. This volume if held steady will continue providing liquidity that will surely inflate the economy. Nigeria is building a Gas liquefying plant called the NLNG train 7 project, that will in a way increase revenue from Gas against depending on oil alone, there are other ongoing Gas projects like the AKK projects and other Gas for power projects, rightly put, the economy is being diversified towards gas. (Russian model) https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/07/nnpc-signs-agreement-for-seven-critical-gas-projects/ As you can see here, Manufacturing is gradually expanding, next will be jobs returning on its own https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2018/07/08/cbn-at-57-0-pmi-manufacturing-sector-expanded-in-june/amp/ We don't need Atiku's stealing to truncate an economic process already in recovery. In conclusion, I can state for a fact that the economic challenges of this country has nothing to do with Buhari under the circumstances he met on ground, we have a chance to fix culpability of blames where it rightly belongs on crude shock, or replace this government whose framework seems promising with another leadership of questionable integrity. Buhari is like a mechanic that was given a car to fix, only for the car owner to accuse him of being the problem of the car when he is yet to fix anything. We shall never go back to past governments whose inaction landed us in this mess in the first place. leadership in the past that we tasked to privatize our establishments, all failed save for the one that ended up in his pocket, yet he claimed to create Jobs? How many jobs were lost in that privatization scam where 56 government entities perished? Where is our NITEL, ALSCON, Nicon Insurance to mention a few? Leadership that claims to create jobs but his company PRODECO folded up? Leadership that claim to create jobs yet it was Buhari that sacked foreigners littered everywhere in his company, does an ordinary logistics company need that much foreigners? Leadership that is a case study for corruption and money laundering by the US Senate committee on Homeland security, Leadership that preaches restructuring but enjoys monopoly in Niger delta sea ports? Atiku is a walking scam, may we not walk into the scam called Atiku because of lies peddled and perfected by the same holocausts that landed us in bondage, every scam comes with a loud noise, say No to Atiku, we cant move from Abacha loot to Atiku loot at this perilous time. Fraudulent Leadership that wants to sell 90% of NNPC robbing us of 74% of our forex needs, Leadership that wants to spend $90b annually building infrastructures when Nigeria earns less than $30b annually. It will be very dangerous and retrogressive to have a leader that is in bad terms with the international community, remember that the united states is the Fulcrum of our war against insurgency, one will argue that if America doesn't sell arms to us we go to Russia, the world works differently now under Donald trump, ask yourself, why did Jonathan not go to those people when America sanctioned him under the Leahy's ban? Yet he sat idly and watched Boko haram slaughter tens of thousands eventually took LGA's? American ban is as good as a global ban, recall how South Africa seized funds Jonathan wanted to use for arms purchase, please dont ask me what is South Africa's business with a US ban, that is how the world works. In 2017, the US congress passed a law called Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, CAATSA to promote the America first agenda while sanctioning countries that do business with American's enemies. If Atiku (God forbid) becomes the president as much as thinks about going to Russia for help, Nigeria will end up in CAATSA web, and that is when the true Hunger will manifest. Can you live under a US sanction like North Korea and Iran? can you live with a Boko haram that is out of control? A boko haram that once bombed Abuja for fun but Today the once Almighty Shekau is in hiding? what about other support we get from the US like the USAID? free immunization? Polio prevention? HIV and AIDS vaccines? Machinery and oil and gas technologies etc? are you willing to throw away all these because of a criminal whose greed led him to commit atrocities in the United states or hate for Buhari that is built on lies? When faced with these realities, Atiku will never achieve anything, rather he will steal what we have left and disappear like he did in the US. May God help us!! Watch Peter obi summarize this analysis https://twitter.com/i/status/1058007016810123264 2 Likes 2 Shares |
| Politics › Re: Buhari Has Borrowed 12billion Dollars In The Last 3years.. by jpphilips(m): 10:34pm On Feb 10, 2019 |
IS BUHARI TRULY RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR ECONOMIC WOES? A lot have been said about Buhari, how he brought hardship on Nigerians, how he is responsible for all the suffering in Nigeria, is that theory backed with facts and global economic realities or the shenanigans of few individuals basking in the Euphoria of ignorance? Since I must make a choice between our present loud political gladiators, I armed myself with Economics textbooks and news archive, here is what i discovered. Nigeria an oil producing and oil dependent economy suffered a global economic hit called crude oil price shock it is the sudden drop in price of crude oil in the commodity trading market, it has occurred at different times in History nearly every decade. Countries that are hardest hit by crude shock are basically countries that not only produce crude oil in significant amount but solely depend on it as their foreign exchange earner. While oil shocks have asymmetric effects in oil-exporting developing countries; lower oil prices lead to major revenue cuts and ensuing stagnation in the economy, but higher oil prices and accompanying higher revenues do not translate into sustained economic growth. What are the effects of crude shock in oil producing developing economies? Forex scarcity: Most developing economies whether oil producing or not, depend on importation to survive, where foreign currency becomes scarce, industries, individuals that have significant need for forex will likely close shops giving birth to the second problem unemployment then finally the master Recession. Unemployment: When industries no longer have forex to buy spare parts, can no longer afford raw materials, production slows, sales slows, profit eroded, workers sacked, since the volume of activities in the economy is directly proportional to the GDP, the GDP contracts and birth another economic monster Recession. Recession is a chain reaction of unpalatable economic events that shows the economy is not experiencing growth but contracting, lets look at the effects of recession, high energy cost (energy in most developing economies are subsidized one way or another) crude shock and eventually recession erodes government revenues till a point where it could no longer afford subsidies and other things it used to afford. In Nigeria where our Electricity Generation companies are subsidized, petroleum products are subsidized,you will understand that such partial or complete subsidy removal will quickly skyrocket the cost of living generally, transportation, cost of food etc are equally affected that leads to another monster called Inflation. Inflation: is defined as a phenomenon where huge bills are in search of few goods, how is that possible? when the industries that produce goods closed down, imports could not be sustained due to Forex shortages where will the goods come from? the absence of those goods while the bills remain triggers inflation, causes hunger and eventually poverty and devaluation of local currency. Devaluation is when global reserve currencies trade higher than your currency, of course you recall that an economy in crude shock first suffers Forex shortages, that robs the central bank (in the case of Nigeria) the ability to fix the currency at a reasonable exchange rate. The local currency is allowed to float along a band the cbn thinks may not be too hurtful on the economy. Forex ban is placed on certain commodities, debit cards like Visa, Mastercard et al are all placed on monthly transaction limits as a reflection of the reality of forex shortages. Okonjo iweala then finance minister and coordinator of the economy actually warned Nigerians in 2014 long before buhari came that the level of mismanagement will bring hunger to us, read here: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/business/171145-brace-tougher-times-ahead-okonjo-iweala-tells-nigerians.html If okonjo iweala saw this hunger in 2014, warned us about it, how can a sane person accuse buhari of bringing hardship? Between 2015-2017, all these happened in the Nigerian economy, then I asked "are we the only oil dependent economies in the world? why us alone? The answer took me to several countries in the world and I realized that other oil producing countries dont depend on oil alone, countries like Russia though the largest producer of crude oil in the world, has a robust defense industry that contribute significantly to its GDP, Russia equally enjoys large market shares in Gas distribution in Eurasia, by the time crude oil shock hit, Russia had over $400b in reserves, It became clear that the only economic move that could hold off crude oil shock and other global economic shocks is a robust foreign exchange reserves (Savings). Permit me to take you down our economic history, in 2008 during the global melt down, the then CBN governor prof. Chukwuma Charles soludo bragged that the Nigerian economy is immune to global shocks? That would have sounded ridiculous but it is true, what did he do? they launched an economic strategy called National Economic Empowerment And Development Strategy NEEDS. This strategy recommended that once crude oil is sold, the balance above the budget benchmark is kept in an account called the ECA, by the time that government left and another took over in 2007, both the ECA & Foreign reserve account held over $68b in reserves, in a $200b economy at the time, that reserve was significant enough to whither any storm that came the way of our economy, Much later into the crisis, Nigeria later relaxed its exchange rate to 155 to a dollar. now we know that Nigeria had in the past stood resilience in the face of global shocks with a culture of Savings. Global economic meltdown is worse than crude shock because in a meltdown, major economies are affected, capital flight becomes common in developing economies, crude oil customers reduce demand thereby pushing prices lower, the saddest part is that no country has money to borrow anyone during global meltdown, yet Nigeria Survived it with Soludo's brilliant strategy. A strategy that was blatantly refused by the previous administration when suggested by Iweala, recall that Iweala worked with Soludo in that NEEDS team. Fast forward to 2015, Three out of the top four producers of crude oil in Africa by their production, Nigeria, Angola, Algeria and Egypt were all in recession even though Egypt does not significantly depend on oil but her economy was shattered. Algeria escaped recession because by 2014, just like Nigeria in 2008, Algeria had a foreign reserve balance of $194b in a $156.1b economy (122% of GDP in savings).You can see that the Robust reserve of Algeria was their savior in this modern crude oil shock era. The previous administration in Nigeria boasted of leaving behind a paltry $19b for a $500b economy at the time (3.8% of GDP), that amount is not even enough to pay for imports let alone absorb global shocks, so Nigeria can be rightly described in late 2014 as an oil dependent economy with no savings. How important is this savings? Lets take our research to the Second largest producer of crude oil Angola, just like Nigeria with no significant savings, Angola's challenges needs no introduction, let facts speak for itself Angola suffered severe Forex & currency challenges just like Nigeria. According to Bloomberg They not only devalued their currency, they equally allowed it to float like Nigeria's Angola devalued its currency as the OPEC member sought to revive an economy still reeling from the oil-price crash four years ago. The kwanza fell 11 percent to 187.95 per dollar by 3:35 p.m. in Luanda and depreciated 10 percent to 221.75 against the euro. The move came a day after the central bank allowed the currency to weaken in its first auction of foreign exchange since announcing it would end a dollar peg that’s been in place since April 2016.....BloombergBorrowing to fund Budget deficits, just like Nigeria, Angola has borrowed to the point of requesting a bail out from the IMF https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/08/angola-says-to-request-4-5-bn-imf-loan-as-crisis-lingers/ Unemployment Rate in Angola increased to 20 percent in 2017 from 19.90 percent in 2016. https://tradingeconomics.com/angola/unemployment-rate Inflation in Angola was a whooping 23.67 percent in December 2017, data on the national statistics agency's website showed on Wednesday. Price growth on a month-on-month basis rose to 1.47 percent in January from 1.2 percent previously. Poverty in Angola According to Angola's 2001 MPI, more than 77% of the population was multidimensionally poor. ... The latest available World Bank figure for income poverty in Angola, from 2008, shows that 36.6% of the population is income poor. Angola's population is currently estimated at 29.7 million. I can go on and on the list is endless, as a matter of undeniable fact, Angola just like Nigeria are the largest producers in Africa, they practically did not save enough and they were hit hard by crude price shock. to balance the analysis, it will be unfair to discuss those that didn't save without giving kudos to those that saved, like i said previously, Algeria saved a whooping $194b when the going was good, as such its economy was immune to crude shock. Russia like we said though had currency challenges during the period under review ostensibly because of western sanctions, Russia had over $400b in reserves by ending of 2014. Saudi Arabia was immune to crude shock not without little currency & subsidy issues ostensibly because of its huge financing of the war in Yemen, they were sitting on a comfortable $732b by the end of 2014. My country men, you can see that this suffering was brought upon us by mismanagement by the same people that are warming up to continue from where fate has left us, if buhari had $100b in our foreign reserve in 2015, we wont be hungry today, we wont lose our jobs, we wont lose our manufacturing industries, this is the truth that shall set us free! Some even blamed it on Avengers attack of 2016 Niger delta avengers was a non issue, if you noticed, I expunged them from my initial analysis, here is why; We were in crude shock from late 2014, Avengers struck in 2016, since 2014, your GDP wasn't showing any growth but retrogression or doldrums meaning you were heading towards recession anyways as a result of crude shock. If Avengers did not strike, OPEC would have asked us to cut production to boost prices, read: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-28/opec-said-to-agree-on-first-oil-output-cut-in-eight-years So Avengers or any form of production cut at the time was a non issue. OPEC gave us production cut waiver because Nigeria has already declared force-majore in most of its crude oil export channels. Nigerian people, what is your present government doing to stem this tide that has shocked the fabrics of our nation to the Marrow? The vice president being the economic manager of the country Launched the ERGP, with it Nigeria even in recession was able to save $47b in our foreign reserve, at this pace, I have no doubt that this money will hit $100b in the next 4yrs, that is a guarantee that our economy will become immune to global shocks once again, not just crude shocks alone. (Algerian model) The moment that money crossed $40b mark, forex shortages disappeared, importers stopped complaining, manufacturers stopped complaining of dollar scarcity, debit cards relaxed their limits etc, that was a killer stroke in our economic recovery strategy, inflation immediately responded to the potency of the ERGP from 18.8% in 2017 to 11.23% in 2018. This reserve will boost investors confidence that the economy is liquid enough for profit repatriation, that is how the jobs will return, job creation is private sector driven, not govt. Among the three oil dependent economies in Africa that landed in recession within the same period, Nigeria was the first to exit recession, that was historical & mind blowing, despite fighting terrorism and with a massive population, we did it first before any other country. By Blocking loopholes Our Federal allocation that used to be a misery 311b naira in june 2016 is between 600-700b naira in presently. This volume if held steady will continue providing liquidity that will surely inflate the economy. Nigeria is building a Gas liquefying plant called the NLNG train 7 project, that will in a way increase revenue from Gas against depending on oil alone, there are other ongoing Gas projects like the AKK projects and other Gas for power projects, rightly put, the economy is being diversified towards gas. (Russian model) https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/07/nnpc-signs-agreement-for-seven-critical-gas-projects/ As you can see here, Manufacturing is gradually expanding, next will be jobs returning on its own https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2018/07/08/cbn-at-57-0-pmi-manufacturing-sector-expanded-in-june/amp/ We don't need Atiku's stealing to truncate an economic process already in recovery. In conclusion, I can state for a fact that the economic challenges of this country has nothing to do with Buhari under the circumstances he met on ground, we have a chance to fix culpability of blames where it rightly belongs on crude shock, or replace this government whose framework seems promising with another leadership of questionable integrity. Buhari is like a mechanic that was given a car to fix, only for the car owner to accuse him of being the problem of the car when he is yet to fix anything. We shall never go back to past governments whose inaction landed us in this mess in the first place. leadership in the past that we tasked to privatize our establishments, all failed save for the one that ended up in his pocket, yet he claimed to create Jobs? How many jobs were lost in that privatization scam where 56 government entities perished? Where is our NITEL, ALSCON, Nicon Insurance to mention a few? Leadership that claims to create jobs but his company PRODECO folded up? Leadership that claim to create jobs yet it was Buhari that sacked foreigners littered everywhere in his company, does an ordinary logistics company need that much foreigners? Leadership that is a case study for corruption and money laundering by the US Senate committee on Homeland security, Leadership that preaches restructuring but enjoys monopoly in Niger delta sea ports? Atiku is a walking scam, may we not walk into the scam called Atiku because of lies peddled and perfected by the same holocausts that landed us in bondage, every scam comes with a loud noise, say No to Atiku, we cant move from Abacha loot to Atiku loot at this perilous time. Fraudulent Leadership that wants to sell 90% of NNPC robbing us of 74% of our forex needs, Leadership that wants to spend $90b annually building infrastructures when Nigeria earns less than $30b annually. It will be very dangerous and retrogressive to have a leader that is in bad terms with the international community, remember that the united states is the Fulcrum of our war against insurgency, one will argue that if America doesn't sell arms to us we go to Russia, the world works differently now under Donald trump, ask yourself, why did Jonathan not go to those people when America sanctioned him under the Leahy's ban? Yet he sat idly and watched Boko haram slaughter tens of thousands eventually took LGA's? American ban is as good as a global ban, recall how South Africa seized funds Jonathan wanted to use for arms purchase, please dont ask me what is South Africa's business with a US ban, that is how the world works. In 2017, the US congress passed a law called Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, CAATSA to promote the America first agenda while sanctioning countries that do business with American's enemies. If Atiku (God forbid) becomes the president as much as thinks about going to Russia for help, Nigeria will end up in CAATSA web, and that is when the true Hunger will manifest. Can you live under a US sanction like North Korea and Iran? can you live with a Boko haram that is out of control? A boko haram that once bombed Abuja for fun but Today the once Almighty Shekau is in hiding? what about other support we get from the US like the USAID? free immunization? Polio prevention? HIV and AIDS vaccines? Machinery and oil and gas technologies etc? are you willing to throw away all these because of a criminal whose greed led him to commit atrocities in the United states or hate for Buhari that is built on lies? When faced with these realities, Atiku will never achieve anything, rather he will steal what we have left and disappear like he did in the US. May God help us!! Watch Peter obi summarize this analysis https://twitter.com/i/status/1058007016810123264 1 Like |
| Politics › Re: Breaking News!!! France Bankrolling Atiku's Campaign....to Buy Nnpc. by jpphilips(m): 8:53pm On Feb 10, 2019 |
IS BUHARI TRULY RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR ECONOMIC WOES? A lot have been said about Buhari, how he brought hardship on Nigerians, how he is responsible for all the suffering in Nigeria, is that theory backed with facts and global economic realities or the shenanigans of few individuals basking in the Euphoria of ignorance? Since I must make a choice between our present loud political gladiators, I armed myself with Economics textbooks and news archive, here is what i discovered. Nigeria an oil producing and oil dependent economy suffered a global economic hit called crude oil price shock it is the sudden drop in price of crude oil in the commodity trading market, it has occurred at different times in History nearly every decade. Countries that are hardest hit by crude shock are basically countries that not only produce crude oil in significant amount but solely depend on it as their foreign exchange earner. While oil shocks have asymmetric effects in oil-exporting developing countries; lower oil prices lead to major revenue cuts and ensuing stagnation in the economy, but higher oil prices and accompanying higher revenues do not translate into sustained economic growth. What are the effects of crude shock in oil producing developing economies? Forex scarcity: Most developing economies whether oil producing or not, depend on importation to survive, where foreign currency becomes scarce, industries, individuals that have significant need for forex will likely close shops giving birth to the second problem unemployment then finally the master Recession. Unemployment: When industries no longer have forex to buy spare parts, can no longer afford raw materials, production slows, sales slows, profit eroded, workers sacked, since the volume of activities in the economy is directly proportional to the GDP, the GDP contracts and birth another economic monster Recession. Recession is a chain reaction of unpalatable economic events that shows the economy is not experiencing growth but contracting, lets look at the effects of recession, high energy cost (energy in most developing economies are subsidized one way or another) crude shock and eventually recession erodes government revenues till a point where it could no longer afford subsidies and other things it used to afford. In Nigeria where our Electricity Generation companies are subsidized, petroleum products are subsidized,you will understand that such partial or complete subsidy removal will quickly skyrocket the cost of living generally, transportation, cost of food etc are equally affected that leads to another monster called Inflation. Inflation: is defined as a phenomenon where huge bills are in search of few goods, how is that possible? when the industries that produce goods closed down, imports could not be sustained due to Forex shortages where will the goods come from? the absence of those goods while the bills remain triggers inflation, causes hunger and eventually poverty and devaluation of local currency. Devaluation is when global reserve currencies trade higher than your currency, of course you recall that an economy in crude shock first suffers Forex shortages, that robs the central bank (in the case of Nigeria) the ability to fix the currency at a reasonable exchange rate. The local currency is allowed to float along a band the cbn thinks may not be too hurtful on the economy. Forex ban is placed on certain commodities, debit cards like Visa, Mastercard et al are all placed on monthly transaction limits as a reflection of the reality of forex shortages. Okonjo iweala then finance minister and coordinator of the economy actually warned Nigerians in 2014 long before buhari came that the level of mismanagement will bring hunger to us, read here: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/business/171145-brace-tougher-times-ahead-okonjo-iweala-tells-nigerians.html If okonjo iweala saw this hunger in 2014, warned us about it, how can a sane person accuse buhari of bringing hardship? Between 2015-2017, all these happened in the Nigerian economy, then I asked "are we the only oil dependent economies in the world? why us alone? The answer took me to several countries in the world and I realized that other oil producing countries dont depend on oil alone, countries like Russia though the largest producer of crude oil in the world, has a robust defense industry that contribute significantly to its GDP, Russia equally enjoys large market shares in Gas distribution in Eurasia, by the time crude oil shock hit, Russia had over $400b in reserves, It became clear that the only economic move that could hold off crude oil shock and other global economic shocks is a robust foreign exchange reserves (Savings). Permit me to take you down our economic history, in 2008 during the global melt down, the then CBN governor prof. Chukwuma Charles soludo bragged that the Nigerian economy is immune to global shocks? That would have sounded ridiculous but it is true, what did he do? they launched an economic strategy called National Economic Empowerment And Development Strategy NEEDS. This strategy recommended that once crude oil is sold, the balance above the budget benchmark is kept in an account called the ECA, by the time that government left and another took over in 2007, both the ECA & Foreign reserve account held over $68b in reserves, in a $200b economy at the time, that reserve was significant enough to whither any storm that came the way of our economy, Much later into the crisis, Nigeria later relaxed its exchange rate to 155 to a dollar. now we know that Nigeria had in the past stood resilience in the face of global shocks with a culture of Savings. Global economic meltdown is worse than crude shock because in a meltdown, major economies are affected, capital flight becomes common in developing economies, crude oil customers reduce demand thereby pushing prices lower, the saddest part is that no country has money to borrow anyone during global meltdown, yet Nigeria Survived it with Soludo's brilliant strategy. A strategy that was blatantly refused by the previous administration when suggested by Iweala, recall that Iweala worked with Soludo in that NEEDS team. Fast forward to 2015, Three out of the top four producers of crude oil in Africa by their production, Nigeria, Angola, Algeria and Egypt were all in recession even though Egypt does not significantly depend on oil but her economy was shattered. Algeria escaped recession because by 2014, just like Nigeria in 2008, Algeria had a foreign reserve balance of $194b in a $156.1b economy (122% of GDP in savings).You can see that the Robust reserve of Algeria was their savior in this modern crude oil shock era. The previous administration in Nigeria boasted of leaving behind a paltry $19b for a $500b economy at the time (3.8% of GDP), that amount is not even enough to pay for imports let alone absorb global shocks, so Nigeria can be rightly described in late 2014 as an oil dependent economy with no savings. How important is this savings? Lets take our research to the Second largest producer of crude oil Angola, just like Nigeria with no significant savings, Angola's challenges needs no introduction, let facts speak for itself Angola suffered severe Forex & currency challenges just like Nigeria. According to Bloomberg They not only devalued their currency, they equally allowed it to float like Nigeria's Angola devalued its currency as the OPEC member sought to revive an economy still reeling from the oil-price crash four years ago. The kwanza fell 11 percent to 187.95 per dollar by 3:35 p.m. in Luanda and depreciated 10 percent to 221.75 against the euro. The move came a day after the central bank allowed the currency to weaken in its first auction of foreign exchange since announcing it would end a dollar peg that’s been in place since April 2016.....BloombergBorrowing to fund Budget deficits, just like Nigeria, Angola has borrowed to the point of requesting a bail out from the IMF https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/08/angola-says-to-request-4-5-bn-imf-loan-as-crisis-lingers/ Unemployment Rate in Angola increased to 20 percent in 2017 from 19.90 percent in 2016. https://tradingeconomics.com/angola/unemployment-rate Inflation in Angola was a whooping 23.67 percent in December 2017, data on the national statistics agency's website showed on Wednesday. Price growth on a month-on-month basis rose to 1.47 percent in January from 1.2 percent previously. Poverty in Angola According to Angola's 2001 MPI, more than 77% of the population was multidimensionally poor. ... The latest available World Bank figure for income poverty in Angola, from 2008, shows that 36.6% of the population is income poor. Angola's population is currently estimated at 29.7 million. I can go on and on the list is endless, as a matter of undeniable fact, Angola just like Nigeria are the largest producers in Africa, they practically did not save enough and they were hit hard by crude price shock. to balance the analysis, it will be unfair to discuss those that didn't save without giving kudos to those that saved, like i said previously, Algeria saved a whooping $194b when the going was good, as such its economy was immune to crude shock. Russia like we said though had currency challenges during the period under review ostensibly because of western sanctions, Russia had over $400b in reserves by ending of 2014. Saudi Arabia was immune to crude shock not without little currency & subsidy issues ostensibly because of its huge financing of the war in Yemen, they were sitting on a comfortable $732b by the end of 2014. My country men, you can see that this suffering was brought upon us by mismanagement by the same people that are warming up to continue from where fate has left us, if buhari had $100b in our foreign reserve in 2015, we wont be hungry today, we wont lose our jobs, we wont lose our manufacturing industries, this is the truth that shall set us free! Some even blamed it on Avengers attack of 2016 Niger delta avengers was a non issue, if you noticed, I expunged them from my initial analysis, here is why; We were in crude shock from late 2014, Avengers struck in 2016, since 2014, your GDP wasn't showing any growth but retrogression or doldrums meaning you were heading towards recession anyways as a result of crude shock. If Avengers did not strike, OPEC would have asked us to cut production to boost prices, read: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-28/opec-said-to-agree-on-first-oil-output-cut-in-eight-years So Avengers or any form of production cut at the time was a non issue. OPEC gave us production cut waiver because Nigeria has already declared force-majore in most of its crude oil export channels. Nigerian people, what is your present government doing to stem this tide that has shocked the fabrics of our nation to the Marrow? The vice president being the economic manager of the country Launched the ERGP, with it Nigeria even in recession was able to save $47b in our foreign reserve, at this pace, I have no doubt that this money will hit $100b in the next 4yrs, that is a guarantee that our economy will become immune to global shocks once again, not just crude shocks alone. (Algerian model) The moment that money crossed $40b mark, forex shortages disappeared, importers stopped complaining, manufacturers stopped complaining of dollar scarcity, debit cards relaxed their limits etc, that was a killer stroke in our economic recovery strategy, inflation immediately responded to the potency of the ERGP from 18.8% in 2017 to 11.23% in 2018. This reserve will boost investors confidence that the economy is liquid enough for profit repatriation, that is how the jobs will return, job creation is private sector driven, not govt. Among the three oil dependent economies in Africa that landed in recession within the same period, Nigeria was the first to exit recession, that was historical & mind blowing, despite fighting terrorism and with a massive population, we did it first before any other country. By Blocking loopholes Our Federal allocation that used to be a misery 311b naira in june 2016 is between 600-700b naira in presently. This volume if held steady will continue providing liquidity that will surely inflate the economy. Nigeria is building a Gas liquefying plant called the NLNG train 7 project, that will in a way increase revenue from Gas against depending on oil alone, there are other ongoing Gas projects like the AKK projects and other Gas for power projects, rightly put, the economy is being diversified towards gas. (Russian model) https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/07/nnpc-signs-agreement-for-seven-critical-gas-projects/ As you can see here, Manufacturing is gradually expanding, next will be jobs returning on its own https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2018/07/08/cbn-at-57-0-pmi-manufacturing-sector-expanded-in-june/amp/ We don't need Atiku's stealing to truncate an economic process already in recovery. In conclusion, I can state for a fact that the economic challenges of this country has nothing to do with Buhari under the circumstances he met on ground, we have a chance to fix culpability of blames where it rightly belongs on crude shock, or replace this government whose framework seems promising with another leadership of questionable integrity. Buhari is like a mechanic that was given a car to fix, only for the car owner to accuse him of being the problem of the car when he is yet to fix anything. We shall never go back to past governments whose inaction landed us in this mess in the first place. leadership in the past that we tasked to privatize our establishments, all failed save for the one that ended up in his pocket, yet he claimed to create Jobs? How many jobs were lost in that privatization scam where 56 government entities perished? Where is our NITEL, ALSCON, Nicon Insurance to mention a few? Leadership that claims to create jobs but his company PRODECO folded up? Leadership that claim to create jobs yet it was Buhari that sacked foreigners littered everywhere in his company, does an ordinary logistics company need that much foreigners? Leadership that is a case study for corruption and money laundering by the US Senate committee on Homeland security, Leadership that preaches restructuring but enjoys monopoly in Niger delta sea ports? Atiku is a walking scam, may we not walk into the scam called Atiku because of lies peddled and perfected by the same holocausts that landed us in bondage, every scam comes with a loud noise, say No to Atiku, we cant move from Abacha loot to Atiku loot at this perilous time. Fraudulent Leadership that wants to sell 90% of NNPC robbing us of 74% of our forex needs, Leadership that wants to spend $90b annually building infrastructures when Nigeria earns less than $30b annually. It will be very dangerous and retrogressive to have a leader that is in bad terms with the international community, remember that the united states is the Fulcrum of our war against insurgency, one will argue that if America doesn't sell arms to us we go to Russia, the world works differently now under Donald trump, ask yourself, why did Jonathan not go to those people when America sanctioned him under the Leahy's ban? Yet he sat idly and watched Boko haram slaughter tens of thousands eventually took LGA's? American ban is as good as a global ban, recall how South Africa seized funds Jonathan wanted to use for arms purchase, please dont ask me what is South Africa's business with a US ban, that is how the world works. In 2017, the US congress passed a law called Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, CAATSA to promote the America first agenda while sanctioning countries that do business with American's enemies. If Atiku (God forbid) becomes the president as much as thinks about going to Russia for help, Nigeria will end up in CAATSA web, and that is when the true Hunger will manifest. Can you live under a US sanction like North Korea and Iran? can you live with a Boko haram that is out of control? A boko haram that once bombed Abuja for fun but Today the once Almighty Shekau is in hiding? what about other support we get from the US like the USAID? free immunization? Polio prevention? HIV and AIDS vaccines? Machinery and oil and gas technologies etc? are you willing to throw away all these because of a criminal whose greed led him to commit atrocities in the United states or hate for Buhari that is built on lies? When faced with these realities, Atiku will never achieve anything, rather he will steal what we have left and disappear like he did in the US. May God help us!! Watch Peter obi summarize this analysis https://twitter.com/i/status/1058007016810123264 2 Likes 1 Share |
| Politics › Re: I Pity Nigerians, Why Have You Forgotten Those Sufferings Quickly Under Buhari? by jpphilips(m): 8:50pm On Feb 10, 2019 |
IS BUHARI TRULY RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR ECONOMIC WOES? A lot have been said about Buhari, how he brought hardship on Nigerians, how he is responsible for all the suffering in Nigeria, is that theory backed with facts and global economic realities or the shenanigans of few individuals basking in the Euphoria of ignorance? Since I must make a choice between our present loud political gladiators, I armed myself with Economics textbooks and news archive, here is what i discovered. Nigeria an oil producing and oil dependent economy suffered a global economic hit called crude oil price shock it is the sudden drop in price of crude oil in the commodity trading market, it has occurred at different times in History nearly every decade. Countries that are hardest hit by crude shock are basically countries that not only produce crude oil in significant amount but solely depend on it as their foreign exchange earner. While oil shocks have asymmetric effects in oil-exporting developing countries; lower oil prices lead to major revenue cuts and ensuing stagnation in the economy, but higher oil prices and accompanying higher revenues do not translate into sustained economic growth. What are the effects of crude shock in oil producing developing economies? Forex scarcity: Most developing economies whether oil producing or not, depend on importation to survive, where foreign currency becomes scarce, industries, individuals that have significant need for forex will likely close shops giving birth to the second problem unemployment then finally the master Recession. Unemployment: When industries no longer have forex to buy spare parts, can no longer afford raw materials, production slows, sales slows, profit eroded, workers sacked, since the volume of activities in the economy is directly proportional to the GDP, the GDP contracts and birth another economic monster Recession. Recession is a chain reaction of unpalatable economic events that shows the economy is not experiencing growth but contracting, lets look at the effects of recession, high energy cost (energy in most developing economies are subsidized one way or another) crude shock and eventually recession erodes government revenues till a point where it could no longer afford subsidies and other things it used to afford. In Nigeria where our Electricity Generation companies are subsidized, petroleum products are subsidized,you will understand that such partial or complete subsidy removal will quickly skyrocket the cost of living generally, transportation, cost of food etc are equally affected that leads to another monster called Inflation. Inflation: is defined as a phenomenon where huge bills are in search of few goods, how is that possible? when the industries that produce goods closed down, imports could not be sustained due to Forex shortages where will the goods come from? the absence of those goods while the bills remain triggers inflation, causes hunger and eventually poverty and devaluation of local currency. Devaluation is when global reserve currencies trade higher than your currency, of course you recall that an economy in crude shock first suffers Forex shortages, that robs the central bank (in the case of Nigeria) the ability to fix the currency at a reasonable exchange rate. The local currency is allowed to float along a band the cbn thinks may not be too hurtful on the economy. Forex ban is placed on certain commodities, debit cards like Visa, Mastercard et al are all placed on monthly transaction limits as a reflection of the reality of forex shortages. Okonjo iweala then finance minister and coordinator of the economy actually warned Nigerians in 2014 long before buhari came that the level of mismanagement will bring hunger to us, read here: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/business/171145-brace-tougher-times-ahead-okonjo-iweala-tells-nigerians.html If okonjo iweala saw this hunger in 2014, warned us about it, how can a sane person accuse buhari of bringing hardship? Between 2015-2017, all these happened in the Nigerian economy, then I asked "are we the only oil dependent economies in the world? why us alone? The answer took me to several countries in the world and I realized that other oil producing countries dont depend on oil alone, countries like Russia though the largest producer of crude oil in the world, has a robust defense industry that contribute significantly to its GDP, Russia equally enjoys large market shares in Gas distribution in Eurasia, by the time crude oil shock hit, Russia had over $400b in reserves, It became clear that the only economic move that could hold off crude oil shock and other global economic shocks is a robust foreign exchange reserves (Savings). Permit me to take you down our economic history, in 2008 during the global melt down, the then CBN governor prof. Chukwuma Charles soludo bragged that the Nigerian economy is immune to global shocks? That would have sounded ridiculous but it is true, what did he do? they launched an economic strategy called National Economic Empowerment And Development Strategy NEEDS. This strategy recommended that once crude oil is sold, the balance above the budget benchmark is kept in an account called the ECA, by the time that government left and another took over in 2007, both the ECA & Foreign reserve account held over $68b in reserves, in a $200b economy at the time, that reserve was significant enough to whither any storm that came the way of our economy, Much later into the crisis, Nigeria later relaxed its exchange rate to 155 to a dollar. now we know that Nigeria had in the past stood resilience in the face of global shocks with a culture of Savings. Global economic meltdown is worse than crude shock because in a meltdown, major economies are affected, capital flight becomes common in developing economies, crude oil customers reduce demand thereby pushing prices lower, the saddest part is that no country has money to borrow anyone during global meltdown, yet Nigeria Survived it with Soludo's brilliant strategy. A strategy that was blatantly refused by the previous administration when suggested by Iweala, recall that Iweala worked with Soludo in that NEEDS team. Fast forward to 2015, Three out of the top four producers of crude oil in Africa by their production, Nigeria, Angola, Algeria and Egypt were all in recession even though Egypt does not significantly depend on oil but her economy was shattered. Algeria escaped recession because by 2014, just like Nigeria in 2008, Algeria had a foreign reserve balance of $194b in a $156.1b economy (122% of GDP in savings).You can see that the Robust reserve of Algeria was their savior in this modern crude oil shock era. The previous administration in Nigeria boasted of leaving behind a paltry $19b for a $500b economy at the time (3.8% of GDP), that amount is not even enough to pay for imports let alone absorb global shocks, so Nigeria can be rightly described in late 2014 as an oil dependent economy with no savings. How important is this savings? Lets take our research to the Second largest producer of crude oil Angola, just like Nigeria with no significant savings, Angola's challenges needs no introduction, let facts speak for itself Angola suffered severe Forex & currency challenges just like Nigeria. According to Bloomberg They not only devalued their currency, they equally allowed it to float like Nigeria's Angola devalued its currency as the OPEC member sought to revive an economy still reeling from the oil-price crash four years ago. The kwanza fell 11 percent to 187.95 per dollar by 3:35 p.m. in Luanda and depreciated 10 percent to 221.75 against the euro. The move came a day after the central bank allowed the currency to weaken in its first auction of foreign exchange since announcing it would end a dollar peg that’s been in place since April 2016.....BloombergBorrowing to fund Budget deficits, just like Nigeria, Angola has borrowed to the point of requesting a bail out from the IMF https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/08/angola-says-to-request-4-5-bn-imf-loan-as-crisis-lingers/ Unemployment Rate in Angola increased to 20 percent in 2017 from 19.90 percent in 2016. https://tradingeconomics.com/angola/unemployment-rate Inflation in Angola was a whooping 23.67 percent in December 2017, data on the national statistics agency's website showed on Wednesday. Price growth on a month-on-month basis rose to 1.47 percent in January from 1.2 percent previously. Poverty in Angola According to Angola's 2001 MPI, more than 77% of the population was multidimensionally poor. ... The latest available World Bank figure for income poverty in Angola, from 2008, shows that 36.6% of the population is income poor. Angola's population is currently estimated at 29.7 million. I can go on and on the list is endless, as a matter of undeniable fact, Angola just like Nigeria are the largest producers in Africa, they practically did not save enough and they were hit hard by crude price shock. to balance the analysis, it will be unfair to discuss those that didn't save without giving kudos to those that saved, like i said previously, Algeria saved a whooping $194b when the going was good, as such its economy was immune to crude shock. Russia like we said though had currency challenges during the period under review ostensibly because of western sanctions, Russia had over $400b in reserves by ending of 2014. Saudi Arabia was immune to crude shock not without little currency & subsidy issues ostensibly because of its huge financing of the war in Yemen, they were sitting on a comfortable $732b by the end of 2014. My country men, you can see that this suffering was brought upon us by mismanagement by the same people that are warming up to continue from where fate has left us, if buhari had $100b in our foreign reserve in 2015, we wont be hungry today, we wont lose our jobs, we wont lose our manufacturing industries, this is the truth that shall set us free! Some even blamed it on Avengers attack of 2016 Niger delta avengers was a non issue, if you noticed, I expunged them from my initial analysis, here is why; We were in crude shock from late 2014, Avengers struck in 2016, since 2014, your GDP wasn't showing any growth but retrogression or doldrums meaning you were heading towards recession anyways as a result of crude shock. If Avengers did not strike, OPEC would have asked us to cut production to boost prices, read: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-28/opec-said-to-agree-on-first-oil-output-cut-in-eight-years So Avengers or any form of production cut at the time was a non issue. OPEC gave us production cut waiver because Nigeria has already declared force-majore in most of its crude oil export channels. Nigerian people, what is your present government doing to stem this tide that has shocked the fabrics of our nation to the Marrow? The vice president being the economic manager of the country Launched the ERGP, with it Nigeria even in recession was able to save $47b in our foreign reserve, at this pace, I have no doubt that this money will hit $100b in the next 4yrs, that is a guarantee that our economy will become immune to global shocks once again, not just crude shocks alone. (Algerian model) The moment that money crossed $40b mark, forex shortages disappeared, importers stopped complaining, manufacturers stopped complaining of dollar scarcity, debit cards relaxed their limits etc, that was a killer stroke in our economic recovery strategy, inflation immediately responded to the potency of the ERGP from 18.8% in 2017 to 11.23% in 2018. This reserve will boost investors confidence that the economy is liquid enough for profit repatriation, that is how the jobs will return, job creation is private sector driven, not govt. Among the three oil dependent economies in Africa that landed in recession within the same period, Nigeria was the first to exit recession, that was historical & mind blowing, despite fighting terrorism and with a massive population, we did it first before any other country. By Blocking loopholes Our Federal allocation that used to be a misery 311b naira in june 2016 is between 600-700b naira in presently. This volume if held steady will continue providing liquidity that will surely inflate the economy. Nigeria is building a Gas liquefying plant called the NLNG train 7 project, that will in a way increase revenue from Gas against depending on oil alone, there are other ongoing Gas projects like the AKK projects and other Gas for power projects, rightly put, the economy is being diversified towards gas. (Russian model) https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/07/nnpc-signs-agreement-for-seven-critical-gas-projects/ As you can see here, Manufacturing is gradually expanding, next will be jobs returning on its own https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2018/07/08/cbn-at-57-0-pmi-manufacturing-sector-expanded-in-june/amp/ We don't need Atiku's stealing to truncate an economic process already in recovery. In conclusion, I can state for a fact that the economic challenges of this country has nothing to do with Buhari under the circumstances he met on ground, we have a chance to fix culpability of blames where it rightly belongs on crude shock, or replace this government whose framework seems promising with another leadership of questionable integrity. Buhari is like a mechanic that was given a car to fix, only for the car owner to accuse him of being the problem of the car when he is yet to fix anything. We shall never go back to past governments whose inaction landed us in this mess in the first place. leadership in the past that we tasked to privatize our establishments, all failed save for the one that ended up in his pocket, yet he claimed to create Jobs? How many jobs were lost in that privatization scam where 56 government entities perished? Where is our NITEL, ALSCON, Nicon Insurance to mention a few? Leadership that claims to create jobs but his company PRODECO folded up? Leadership that claim to create jobs yet it was Buhari that sacked foreigners littered everywhere in his company, does an ordinary logistics company need that much foreigners? Leadership that is a case study for corruption and money laundering by the US Senate committee on Homeland security, Leadership that preaches restructuring but enjoys monopoly in Niger delta sea ports? Atiku is a walking scam, may we not walk into the scam called Atiku because of lies peddled and perfected by the same holocausts that landed us in bondage, every scam comes with a loud noise, say No to Atiku, we cant move from Abacha loot to Atiku loot at this perilous time. Fraudulent Leadership that wants to sell 90% of NNPC robbing us of 74% of our forex needs, Leadership that wants to spend $90b annually building infrastructures when Nigeria earns less than $30b annually. It will be very dangerous and retrogressive to have a leader that is in bad terms with the international community, remember that the united states is the Fulcrum of our war against insurgency, one will argue that if America doesn't sell arms to us we go to Russia, the world works differently now under Donald trump, ask yourself, why did Jonathan not go to those people when America sanctioned him under the Leahy's ban? Yet he sat idly and watched Boko haram slaughter tens of thousands eventually took LGA's? American ban is as good as a global ban, recall how South Africa seized funds Jonathan wanted to use for arms purchase, please dont ask me what is South Africa's business with a US ban, that is how the world works. In 2017, the US congress passed a law called Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, CAATSA to promote the America first agenda while sanctioning countries that do business with American's enemies. If Atiku (God forbid) becomes the president as much as thinks about going to Russia for help, Nigeria will end up in CAATSA web, and that is when the true Hunger will manifest. Can you live under a US sanction like North Korea and Iran? can you live with a Boko haram that is out of control? A boko haram that once bombed Abuja for fun but Today the once Almighty Shekau is in hiding? what about other support we get from the US like the USAID? free immunization? Polio prevention? HIV and AIDS vaccines? Machinery and oil and gas technologies etc? are you willing to throw away all these because of a criminal whose greed led him to commit atrocities in the United states or hate for Buhari that is built on lies? When faced with these realities, Atiku will never achieve anything, rather he will steal what we have left and disappear like he did in the US. May God help us!! Watch Peter obi summarize this analysis https://twitter.com/i/status/1058007016810123264 3 Likes 1 Share |
| Politics › Re: Buhari VS Atiku: How States Will Vote - The Nation by jpphilips(m): 8:49pm On Feb 10, 2019 |
IS BUHARI TRULY RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR ECONOMIC WOES? A lot have been said about Buhari, how he brought hardship on Nigerians, how he is responsible for all the suffering in Nigeria, is that theory backed with facts and global economic realities or the shenanigans of few individuals basking in the Euphoria of ignorance? Since I must make a choice between our present loud political gladiators, I armed myself with Economics textbooks and news archive, here is what i discovered. Nigeria an oil producing and oil dependent economy suffered a global economic hit called crude oil price shock it is the sudden drop in price of crude oil in the commodity trading market, it has occurred at different times in History nearly every decade. Countries that are hardest hit by crude shock are basically countries that not only produce crude oil in significant amount but solely depend on it as their foreign exchange earner. While oil shocks have asymmetric effects in oil-exporting developing countries; lower oil prices lead to major revenue cuts and ensuing stagnation in the economy, but higher oil prices and accompanying higher revenues do not translate into sustained economic growth. What are the effects of crude shock in oil producing developing economies? Forex scarcity: Most developing economies whether oil producing or not, depend on importation to survive, where foreign currency becomes scarce, industries, individuals that have significant need for forex will likely close shops giving birth to the second problem unemployment then finally the master Recession. Unemployment: When industries no longer have forex to buy spare parts, can no longer afford raw materials, production slows, sales slows, profit eroded, workers sacked, since the volume of activities in the economy is directly proportional to the GDP, the GDP contracts and birth another economic monster Recession. Recession is a chain reaction of unpalatable economic events that shows the economy is not experiencing growth but contracting, lets look at the effects of recession, high energy cost (energy in most developing economies are subsidized one way or another) crude shock and eventually recession erodes government revenues till a point where it could no longer afford subsidies and other things it used to afford. In Nigeria where our Electricity Generation companies are subsidized, petroleum products are subsidized,you will understand that such partial or complete subsidy removal will quickly skyrocket the cost of living generally, transportation, cost of food etc are equally affected that leads to another monster called Inflation. Inflation: is defined as a phenomenon where huge bills are in search of few goods, how is that possible? when the industries that produce goods closed down, imports could not be sustained due to Forex shortages where will the goods come from? the absence of those goods while the bills remain triggers inflation, causes hunger and eventually poverty and devaluation of local currency. Devaluation is when global reserve currencies trade higher than your currency, of course you recall that an economy in crude shock first suffers Forex shortages, that robs the central bank (in the case of Nigeria) the ability to fix the currency at a reasonable exchange rate. The local currency is allowed to float along a band the cbn thinks may not be too hurtful on the economy. Forex ban is placed on certain commodities, debit cards like Visa, Mastercard et al are all placed on monthly transaction limits as a reflection of the reality of forex shortages. Okonjo iweala then finance minister and coordinator of the economy actually warned Nigerians in 2014 long before buhari came that the level of mismanagement will bring hunger to us, read here: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/business/171145-brace-tougher-times-ahead-okonjo-iweala-tells-nigerians.html If okonjo iweala saw this hunger in 2014, warned us about it, how can a sane person accuse buhari of bringing hardship? Between 2015-2017, all these happened in the Nigerian economy, then I asked "are we the only oil dependent economies in the world? why us alone? The answer took me to several countries in the world and I realized that other oil producing countries dont depend on oil alone, countries like Russia though the largest producer of crude oil in the world, has a robust defense industry that contribute significantly to its GDP, Russia equally enjoys large market shares in Gas distribution in Eurasia, by the time crude oil shock hit, Russia had over $400b in reserves, It became clear that the only economic move that could hold off crude oil shock and other global economic shocks is a robust foreign exchange reserves (Savings). Permit me to take you down our economic history, in 2008 during the global melt down, the then CBN governor prof. Chukwuma Charles soludo bragged that the Nigerian economy is immune to global shocks? That would have sounded ridiculous but it is true, what did he do? they launched an economic strategy called National Economic Empowerment And Development Strategy NEEDS. This strategy recommended that once crude oil is sold, the balance above the budget benchmark is kept in an account called the ECA, by the time that government left and another took over in 2007, both the ECA & Foreign reserve account held over $68b in reserves, in a $200b economy at the time, that reserve was significant enough to whither any storm that came the way of our economy, Much later into the crisis, Nigeria later relaxed its exchange rate to 155 to a dollar. now we know that Nigeria had in the past stood resilience in the face of global shocks with a culture of Savings. Global economic meltdown is worse than crude shock because in a meltdown, major economies are affected, capital flight becomes common in developing economies, crude oil customers reduce demand thereby pushing prices lower, the saddest part is that no country has money to borrow anyone during global meltdown, yet Nigeria Survived it with Soludo's brilliant strategy. A strategy that was blatantly refused by the previous administration when suggested by Iweala, recall that Iweala worked with Soludo in that NEEDS team. Fast forward to 2015, Three out of the top four producers of crude oil in Africa by their production, Nigeria, Angola, Algeria and Egypt were all in recession even though Egypt does not significantly depend on oil but her economy was shattered. Algeria escaped recession because by 2014, just like Nigeria in 2008, Algeria had a foreign reserve balance of $194b in a $156.1b economy (122% of GDP in savings).You can see that the Robust reserve of Algeria was their savior in this modern crude oil shock era. The previous administration in Nigeria boasted of leaving behind a paltry $19b for a $500b economy at the time (3.8% of GDP), that amount is not even enough to pay for imports let alone absorb global shocks, so Nigeria can be rightly described in late 2014 as an oil dependent economy with no savings. How important is this savings? Lets take our research to the Second largest producer of crude oil Angola, just like Nigeria with no significant savings, Angola's challenges needs no introduction, let facts speak for itself Angola suffered severe Forex & currency challenges just like Nigeria. According to Bloomberg They not only devalued their currency, they equally allowed it to float like Nigeria's Angola devalued its currency as the OPEC member sought to revive an economy still reeling from the oil-price crash four years ago. The kwanza fell 11 percent to 187.95 per dollar by 3:35 p.m. in Luanda and depreciated 10 percent to 221.75 against the euro. The move came a day after the central bank allowed the currency to weaken in its first auction of foreign exchange since announcing it would end a dollar peg that’s been in place since April 2016.....BloombergBorrowing to fund Budget deficits, just like Nigeria, Angola has borrowed to the point of requesting a bail out from the IMF https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/08/angola-says-to-request-4-5-bn-imf-loan-as-crisis-lingers/ Unemployment Rate in Angola increased to 20 percent in 2017 from 19.90 percent in 2016. https://tradingeconomics.com/angola/unemployment-rate Inflation in Angola was a whooping 23.67 percent in December 2017, data on the national statistics agency's website showed on Wednesday. Price growth on a month-on-month basis rose to 1.47 percent in January from 1.2 percent previously. Poverty in Angola According to Angola's 2001 MPI, more than 77% of the population was multidimensionally poor. ... The latest available World Bank figure for income poverty in Angola, from 2008, shows that 36.6% of the population is income poor. Angola's population is currently estimated at 29.7 million. I can go on and on the list is endless, as a matter of undeniable fact, Angola just like Nigeria are the largest producers in Africa, they practically did not save enough and they were hit hard by crude price shock. to balance the analysis, it will be unfair to discuss those that didn't save without giving kudos to those that saved, like i said previously, Algeria saved a whooping $194b when the going was good, as such its economy was immune to crude shock. Russia like we said though had currency challenges during the period under review ostensibly because of western sanctions, Russia had over $400b in reserves by ending of 2014. Saudi Arabia was immune to crude shock not without little currency & subsidy issues ostensibly because of its huge financing of the war in Yemen, they were sitting on a comfortable $732b by the end of 2014. My country men, you can see that this suffering was brought upon us by mismanagement by the same people that are warming up to continue from where fate has left us, if buhari had $100b in our foreign reserve in 2015, we wont be hungry today, we wont lose our jobs, we wont lose our manufacturing industries, this is the truth that shall set us free! Some even blamed it on Avengers attack of 2016 Niger delta avengers was a non issue, if you noticed, I expunged them from my initial analysis, here is why; We were in crude shock from late 2014, Avengers struck in 2016, since 2014, your GDP wasn't showing any growth but retrogression or doldrums meaning you were heading towards recession anyways as a result of crude shock. If Avengers did not strike, OPEC would have asked us to cut production to boost prices, read: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-28/opec-said-to-agree-on-first-oil-output-cut-in-eight-years So Avengers or any form of production cut at the time was a non issue. OPEC gave us production cut waiver because Nigeria has already declared force-majore in most of its crude oil export channels. Nigerian people, what is your present government doing to stem this tide that has shocked the fabrics of our nation to the Marrow? The vice president being the economic manager of the country Launched the ERGP, with it Nigeria even in recession was able to save $47b in our foreign reserve, at this pace, I have no doubt that this money will hit $100b in the next 4yrs, that is a guarantee that our economy will become immune to global shocks once again, not just crude shocks alone. (Algerian model) The moment that money crossed $40b mark, forex shortages disappeared, importers stopped complaining, manufacturers stopped complaining of dollar scarcity, debit cards relaxed their limits etc, that was a killer stroke in our economic recovery strategy, inflation immediately responded to the potency of the ERGP from 18.8% in 2017 to 11.23% in 2018. This reserve will boost investors confidence that the economy is liquid enough for profit repatriation, that is how the jobs will return, job creation is private sector driven, not govt. Among the three oil dependent economies in Africa that landed in recession within the same period, Nigeria was the first to exit recession, that was historical & mind blowing, despite fighting terrorism and with a massive population, we did it first before any other country. By Blocking loopholes Our Federal allocation that used to be a misery 311b naira in june 2016 is between 600-700b naira in presently. This volume if held steady will continue providing liquidity that will surely inflate the economy. Nigeria is building a Gas liquefying plant called the NLNG train 7 project, that will in a way increase revenue from Gas against depending on oil alone, there are other ongoing Gas projects like the AKK projects and other Gas for power projects, rightly put, the economy is being diversified towards gas. (Russian model) https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/07/nnpc-signs-agreement-for-seven-critical-gas-projects/ As you can see here, Manufacturing is gradually expanding, next will be jobs returning on its own https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2018/07/08/cbn-at-57-0-pmi-manufacturing-sector-expanded-in-june/amp/ We don't need Atiku's stealing to truncate an economic process already in recovery. In conclusion, I can state for a fact that the economic challenges of this country has nothing to do with Buhari under the circumstances he met on ground, we have a chance to fix culpability of blames where it rightly belongs on crude shock, or replace this government whose framework seems promising with another leadership of questionable integrity. Buhari is like a mechanic that was given a car to fix, only for the car owner to accuse him of being the problem of the car when he is yet to fix anything. We shall never go back to past governments whose inaction landed us in this mess in the first place. leadership in the past that we tasked to privatize our establishments, all failed save for the one that ended up in his pocket, yet he claimed to create Jobs? How many jobs were lost in that privatization scam where 56 government entities perished? Where is our NITEL, ALSCON, Nicon Insurance to mention a few? Leadership that claims to create jobs but his company PRODECO folded up? Leadership that claim to create jobs yet it was Buhari that sacked foreigners littered everywhere in his company, does an ordinary logistics company need that much foreigners? Leadership that is a case study for corruption and money laundering by the US Senate committee on Homeland security, Leadership that preaches restructuring but enjoys monopoly in Niger delta sea ports? Atiku is a walking scam, may we not walk into the scam called Atiku because of lies peddled and perfected by the same holocausts that landed us in bondage, every scam comes with a loud noise, say No to Atiku, we cant move from Abacha loot to Atiku loot at this perilous time. Fraudulent Leadership that wants to sell 90% of NNPC robbing us of 74% of our forex needs, Leadership that wants to spend $90b annually building infrastructures when Nigeria earns less than $30b annually. It will be very dangerous and retrogressive to have a leader that is in bad terms with the international community, remember that the united states is the Fulcrum of our war against insurgency, one will argue that if America doesn't sell arms to us we go to Russia, the world works differently now under Donald trump, ask yourself, why did Jonathan not go to those people when America sanctioned him under the Leahy's ban? Yet he sat idly and watched Boko haram slaughter tens of thousands eventually took LGA's? American ban is as good as a global ban, recall how South Africa seized funds Jonathan wanted to use for arms purchase, please dont ask me what is South Africa's business with a US ban, that is how the world works. In 2017, the US congress passed a law called Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, CAATSA to promote the America first agenda while sanctioning countries that do business with American's enemies. If Atiku (God forbid) becomes the president as much as thinks about going to Russia for help, Nigeria will end up in CAATSA web, and that is when the true Hunger will manifest. Can you live under a US sanction like North Korea and Iran? can you live with a Boko haram that is out of control? A boko haram that once bombed Abuja for fun but Today the once Almighty Shekau is in hiding? what about other support we get from the US like the USAID? free immunization? Polio prevention? HIV and AIDS vaccines? Machinery and oil and gas technologies etc? are you willing to throw away all these because of a criminal whose greed led him to commit atrocities in the United states or hate for Buhari that is built on lies? When faced with these realities, Atiku will never achieve anything, rather he will steal what we have left and disappear like he did in the US. May God help us!! Watch Peter obi summarize this analysis https://twitter.com/i/status/1058007016810123264 5 Likes 2 Shares |
| Politics › Re: Why Buhari Does Not Write Letters – Fashola by jpphilips(m): 7:51pm On Feb 10, 2019 |
IS BUHARI TRULY RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR ECONOMIC WOES? A lot have been said about Buhari, how he brought hardship on Nigerians, how he is responsible for all the suffering in Nigeria, is that theory backed with facts and global economic realities or the shenanigans of few individuals basking in the Euphoria of ignorance? Since I must make a choice between our present loud political gladiators, I armed myself with Economics textbooks and news archive, here is what i discovered. Nigeria an oil producing and oil dependent economy suffered a global economic hit called crude oil price shock it is the sudden drop in price of crude oil in the commodity trading market, it has occurred at different times in History nearly every decade. Countries that are hardest hit by crude shock are basically countries that not only produce crude oil in significant amount but solely depend on it as their foreign exchange earner. While oil shocks have asymmetric effects in oil-exporting developing countries; lower oil prices lead to major revenue cuts and ensuing stagnation in the economy, but higher oil prices and accompanying higher revenues do not translate into sustained economic growth. What are the effects of crude shock in oil producing developing economies? Forex scarcity: Most developing economies whether oil producing or not, depend on importation to survive, where foreign currency becomes scarce, industries, individuals that have significant need for forex will likely close shops giving birth to the second problem unemployment then finally the master Recession. Unemployment: When industries no longer have forex to buy spare parts, can no longer afford raw materials, production slows, sales slows, profit eroded, workers sacked, since the volume of activities in the economy is directly proportional to the GDP, the GDP contracts and birth another economic monster Recession. Recession is a chain reaction of unpalatable economic events that shows the economy is not experiencing growth but contracting, lets look at the effects of recession, high energy cost (energy in most developing economies are subsidized one way or another) crude shock and eventually recession erodes government revenues till a point where it could no longer afford subsidies and other things it used to afford. In Nigeria where our Electricity Generation companies are subsidized, petroleum products are subsidized,you will understand that such partial or complete subsidy removal will quickly skyrocket the cost of living generally, transportation, cost of food etc are equally affected that leads to another monster called Inflation. Inflation: is defined as a phenomenon where huge bills are in search of few goods, how is that possible? when the industries that produce goods closed down, imports could not be sustained due to Forex shortages where will the goods come from? the absence of those goods while the bills remain triggers inflation, causes hunger and eventually poverty and devaluation of local currency. Devaluation is when global reserve currencies trade higher than your currency, of course you recall that an economy in crude shock first suffers Forex shortages, that robs the central bank (in the case of Nigeria) the ability to fix the currency at a reasonable exchange rate. The local currency is allowed to float along a band the cbn thinks may not be too hurtful on the economy. Forex ban is placed on certain commodities, debit cards like Visa, Mastercard et al are all placed on monthly transaction limits as a reflection of the reality of forex shortages. Okonjo iweala then finance minister and coordinator of the economy actually warned Nigerians in 2014 long before buhari came that the level of mismanagement will bring hunger to us, read here: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/business/171145-brace-tougher-times-ahead-okonjo-iweala-tells-nigerians.html If okonjo iweala saw this hunger in 2014, warned us about it, how can a sane person accuse buhari of bringing hardship? Between 2015-2017, all these happened in the Nigerian economy, then I asked "are we the only oil dependent economies in the world? why us alone? The answer took me to several countries in the world and I realized that other oil producing countries dont depend on oil alone, countries like Russia though the largest producer of crude oil in the world, has a robust defense industry that contribute significantly to its GDP, Russia equally enjoys large market shares in Gas distribution in Eurasia, by the time crude oil shock hit, Russia had over $400b in reserves, It became clear that the only economic move that could hold off crude oil shock and other global economic shocks is a robust foreign exchange reserves (Savings). Permit me to take you down our economic history, in 2008 during the global melt down, the then CBN governor prof. Chukwuma Charles soludo bragged that the Nigerian economy is immune to global shocks? That would have sounded ridiculous but it is true, what did he do? they launched an economic strategy called National Economic Empowerment And Development Strategy NEEDS. This strategy recommended that once crude oil is sold, the balance above the budget benchmark is kept in an account called the ECA, by the time that government left and another took over in 2007, both the ECA & Foreign reserve account held over $68b in reserves, in a $200b economy at the time, that reserve was significant enough to whither any storm that came the way of our economy, Much later into the crisis, Nigeria later relaxed its exchange rate to 155 to a dollar. now we know that Nigeria had in the past stood resilience in the face of global shocks with a culture of Savings. Global economic meltdown is worse than crude shock because in a meltdown, major economies are affected, capital flight becomes common in developing economies, crude oil customers reduce demand thereby pushing prices lower, the saddest part is that no country has money to borrow anyone during global meltdown, yet Nigeria Survived it with Soludo's brilliant strategy. A strategy that was blatantly refused by the previous administration when suggested by Iweala, recall that Iweala worked with Soludo in that NEEDS team. Fast forward to 2015, Three out of the top four producers of crude oil in Africa by their production, Nigeria, Angola, Algeria and Egypt were all in recession even though Egypt does not significantly depend on oil but her economy was shattered. Algeria escaped recession because by 2014, just like Nigeria in 2008, Algeria had a foreign reserve balance of $194b in a $156.1b economy (122% of GDP in savings).You can see that the Robust reserve of Algeria was their savior in this modern crude oil shock era. The previous administration in Nigeria boasted of leaving behind a paltry $19b for a $500b economy at the time (3.8% of GDP), that amount is not even enough to pay for imports let alone absorb global shocks, so Nigeria can be rightly described in late 2014 as an oil dependent economy with no savings. How important is this savings? Lets take our research to the Second largest producer of crude oil Angola, just like Nigeria with no significant savings, Angola's challenges needs no introduction, let facts speak for itself Angola suffered severe Forex & currency challenges just like Nigeria. According to Bloomberg They not only devalued their currency, they equally allowed it to float like Nigeria's Angola devalued its currency as the OPEC member sought to revive an economy still reeling from the oil-price crash four years ago. The kwanza fell 11 percent to 187.95 per dollar by 3:35 p.m. in Luanda and depreciated 10 percent to 221.75 against the euro. The move came a day after the central bank allowed the currency to weaken in its first auction of foreign exchange since announcing it would end a dollar peg that’s been in place since April 2016.....BloombergBorrowing to fund Budget deficits, just like Nigeria, Angola has borrowed to the point of requesting a bail out from the IMF https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/08/angola-says-to-request-4-5-bn-imf-loan-as-crisis-lingers/ Unemployment Rate in Angola increased to 20 percent in 2017 from 19.90 percent in 2016. https://tradingeconomics.com/angola/unemployment-rate Inflation in Angola was a whooping 23.67 percent in December 2017, data on the national statistics agency's website showed on Wednesday. Price growth on a month-on-month basis rose to 1.47 percent in January from 1.2 percent previously. Poverty in Angola According to Angola's 2001 MPI, more than 77% of the population was multidimensionally poor. ... The latest available World Bank figure for income poverty in Angola, from 2008, shows that 36.6% of the population is income poor. Angola's population is currently estimated at 29.7 million. I can go on and on the list is endless, as a matter of undeniable fact, Angola just like Nigeria are the largest producers in Africa, they practically did not save enough and they were hit hard by crude price shock. to balance the analysis, it will be unfair to discuss those that didn't save without giving kudos to those that saved, like i said previously, Algeria saved a whooping $194b when the going was good, as such its economy was immune to crude shock. Russia like we said though had currency challenges during the period under review ostensibly because of western sanctions, Russia had over $400b in reserves by ending of 2014. Saudi Arabia was immune to crude shock not without little currency & subsidy issues ostensibly because of its huge financing of the war in Yemen, they were sitting on a comfortable $732b by the end of 2014. My country men, you can see that this suffering was brought upon us by mismanagement by the same people that are warming up to continue from where fate has left us, if buhari had $100b in our foreign reserve in 2015, we wont be hungry today, we wont lose our jobs, we wont lose our manufacturing industries, this is the truth that shall set us free! Some even blamed it on Avengers attack of 2016 Niger delta avengers was a non issue, if you noticed, I expunged them from my initial analysis, here is why; We were in crude shock from late 2014, Avengers struck in 2016, since 2014, your GDP wasn't showing any growth but retrogression or doldrums meaning you were heading towards recession anyways as a result of crude shock. If Avengers did not strike, OPEC would have asked us to cut production to boost prices, read: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-28/opec-said-to-agree-on-first-oil-output-cut-in-eight-years So Avengers or any form of production cut at the time was a non issue. OPEC gave us production cut waiver because Nigeria has already declared force-majore in most of its crude oil export channels. Nigerian people, what is your present government doing to stem this tide that has shocked the fabrics of our nation to the Marrow? The vice president being the economic manager of the country Launched the ERGP, with it Nigeria even in recession was able to save $47b in our foreign reserve, at this pace, I have no doubt that this money will hit $100b in the next 4yrs, that is a guarantee that our economy will become immune to global shocks once again, not just crude shocks alone. (Algerian model) The moment that money crossed $40b mark, forex shortages disappeared, importers stopped complaining, manufacturers stopped complaining of dollar scarcity, debit cards relaxed their limits etc, that was a killer stroke in our economic recovery strategy, inflation immediately responded to the potency of the ERGP from 18.8% in 2017 to 11.23% in 2018. This reserve will boost investors confidence that the economy is liquid enough for profit repatriation, that is how the jobs will return, job creation is private sector driven, not govt. Among the three oil dependent economies in Africa that landed in recession within the same period, Nigeria was the first to exit recession, that was historical & mind blowing, despite fighting terrorism and with a massive population, we did it first before any other country. By Blocking loopholes Our Federal allocation that used to be a misery 311b naira in june 2016 is between 600-700b naira in presently. This volume if held steady will continue providing liquidity that will surely inflate the economy. Nigeria is building a Gas liquefying plant called the NLNG train 7 project, that will in a way increase revenue from Gas against depending on oil alone, there are other ongoing Gas projects like the AKK projects and other Gas for power projects, rightly put, the economy is being diversified towards gas. (Russian model) https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/07/nnpc-signs-agreement-for-seven-critical-gas-projects/ As you can see here, Manufacturing is gradually expanding, next will be jobs returning on its own https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2018/07/08/cbn-at-57-0-pmi-manufacturing-sector-expanded-in-june/amp/ We don't need Atiku's stealing to truncate an economic process already in recovery. In conclusion, I can state for a fact that the economic challenges of this country has nothing to do with Buhari under the circumstances he met on ground, we have a chance to fix culpability of blames where it rightly belongs on crude shock, or replace this government whose framework seems promising with another leadership of questionable integrity. Buhari is like a mechanic that was given a car to fix, only for the car owner to accuse him of being the problem of the car when he is yet to fix anything. We shall never go back to past governments whose inaction landed us in this mess in the first place. leadership in the past that we tasked to privatize our establishments, all failed save for the one that ended up in his pocket, yet he claimed to create Jobs? How many jobs were lost in that privatization scam where 56 government entities perished? Where is our NITEL, ALSCON, Nicon Insurance to mention a few? Leadership that claims to create jobs but his company PRODECO folded up? Leadership that claim to create jobs yet it was Buhari that sacked foreigners littered everywhere in his company, does an ordinary logistics company need that much foreigners? Leadership that is a case study for corruption and money laundering by the US Senate committee on Homeland security, Leadership that preaches restructuring but enjoys monopoly in Niger delta sea ports? Atiku is a walking scam, may we not walk into the scam called Atiku because of lies peddled and perfected by the same holocausts that landed us in bondage, every scam comes with a loud noise, say No to Atiku, we cant move from Abacha loot to Atiku loot at this perilous time. Fraudulent Leadership that wants to sell 90% of NNPC robbing us of 74% of our forex needs, Leadership that wants to spend $90b annually building infrastructures when Nigeria earns less than $30b annually. It will be very dangerous and retrogressive to have a leader that is in bad terms with the international community, remember that the united states is the Fulcrum of our war against insurgency, one will argue that if America doesn't sell arms to us we go to Russia, the world works differently now under Donald trump, ask yourself, why did Jonathan not go to those people when America sanctioned him under the Leahy's ban? Yet he sat idly and watched Boko haram slaughter tens of thousands eventually took LGA's? American ban is as good as a global ban, recall how South Africa seized funds Jonathan wanted to use for arms purchase, please dont ask me what is South Africa's business with a US ban, that is how the world works. In 2017, the US congress passed a law called Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, CAATSA to promote the America first agenda while sanctioning countries that do business with American's enemies. If Atiku (God forbid) becomes the president as much as thinks about going to Russia for help, Nigeria will end up in CAATSA web, and that is when the true Hunger will manifest. Can you live under a US sanction like North Korea and Iran? can you live with a Boko haram that is out of control? A boko haram that once bombed Abuja for fun but Today the once Almighty Shekau is in hiding? what about other support we get from the US like the USAID? free immunization? Polio prevention? HIV and AIDS vaccines? Machinery and oil and gas technologies etc? are you willing to throw away all these because of a criminal whose greed led him to commit atrocities in the United states or hate for Buhari that is built on lies? When faced with these realities, Atiku will never achieve anything, rather he will steal what we have left and disappear like he did in the US. May God help us!! Watch Peter obi summarize this analysis https://twitter.com/i/status/1058007016810123264 2 Likes |
| Politics › Re: One Week To Freedom - How Would You Celebrate? by jpphilips(m): 7:48pm On Feb 10, 2019 |
naijapips02: IS BUHARI TRULY RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR ECONOMIC WOES? A lot have been said about Buhari, how he brought hardship on Nigerians, how he is responsible for all the suffering in Nigeria, is that theory backed with facts and global economic realities or the shenanigans of few individuals basking in the Euphoria of ignorance? Since I must make a choice between our present loud political gladiators, I armed myself with Economics textbooks and news archive, here is what i discovered. Nigeria an oil producing and oil dependent economy suffered a global economic hit called crude oil price shock it is the sudden drop in price of crude oil in the commodity trading market, it has occurred at different times in History nearly every decade. Countries that are hardest hit by crude shock are basically countries that not only produce crude oil in significant amount but solely depend on it as their foreign exchange earner. While oil shocks have asymmetric effects in oil-exporting developing countries; lower oil prices lead to major revenue cuts and ensuing stagnation in the economy, but higher oil prices and accompanying higher revenues do not translate into sustained economic growth. What are the effects of crude shock in oil producing developing economies? Forex scarcity: Most developing economies whether oil producing or not, depend on importation to survive, where foreign currency becomes scarce, industries, individuals that have significant need for forex will likely close shops giving birth to the second problem unemployment then finally the master Recession. Unemployment: When industries no longer have forex to buy spare parts, can no longer afford raw materials, production slows, sales slows, profit eroded, workers sacked, since the volume of activities in the economy is directly proportional to the GDP, the GDP contracts and birth another economic monster Recession. Recession is a chain reaction of unpalatable economic events that shows the economy is not experiencing growth but contracting, lets look at the effects of recession, high energy cost (energy in most developing economies are subsidized one way or another) crude shock and eventually recession erodes government revenues till a point where it could no longer afford subsidies and other things it used to afford. In Nigeria where our Electricity Generation companies are subsidized, petroleum products are subsidized,you will understand that such partial or complete subsidy removal will quickly skyrocket the cost of living generally, transportation, cost of food etc are equally affected that leads to another monster called Inflation. Inflation: is defined as a phenomenon where huge bills are in search of few goods, how is that possible? when the industries that produce goods closed down, imports could not be sustained due to Forex shortages where will the goods come from? the absence of those goods while the bills remain triggers inflation, causes hunger and eventually poverty and devaluation of local currency. Devaluation is when global reserve currencies trade higher than your currency, of course you recall that an economy in crude shock first suffers Forex shortages, that robs the central bank (in the case of Nigeria) the ability to fix the currency at a reasonable exchange rate. The local currency is allowed to float along a band the cbn thinks may not be too hurtful on the economy. Forex ban is placed on certain commodities, debit cards like Visa, Mastercard et al are all placed on monthly transaction limits as a reflection of the reality of forex shortages. Okonjo iweala then finance minister and coordinator of the economy actually warned Nigerians in 2014 long before buhari came that the level of mismanagement will bring hunger to us, read here: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/business/171145-brace-tougher-times-ahead-okonjo-iweala-tells-nigerians.html If okonjo iweala saw this hunger in 2014, warned us about it, how can a sane person accuse buhari of bringing hardship? Between 2015-2017, all these happened in the Nigerian economy, then I asked "are we the only oil dependent economies in the world? why us alone? The answer took me to several countries in the world and I realized that other oil producing countries dont depend on oil alone, countries like Russia though the largest producer of crude oil in the world, has a robust defense industry that contribute significantly to its GDP, Russia equally enjoys large market shares in Gas distribution in Eurasia, by the time crude oil shock hit, Russia had over $400b in reserves, It became clear that the only economic move that could hold off crude oil shock and other global economic shocks is a robust foreign exchange reserves (Savings). Permit me to take you down our economic history, in 2008 during the global melt down, the then CBN governor prof. Chukwuma Charles soludo bragged that the Nigerian economy is immune to global shocks? That would have sounded ridiculous but it is true, what did he do? they launched an economic strategy called National Economic Empowerment And Development Strategy NEEDS. This strategy recommended that once crude oil is sold, the balance above the budget benchmark is kept in an account called the ECA, by the time that government left and another took over in 2007, both the ECA & Foreign reserve account held over $68b in reserves, in a $200b economy at the time, that reserve was significant enough to whither any storm that came the way of our economy, Much later into the crisis, Nigeria later relaxed its exchange rate to 155 to a dollar. now we know that Nigeria had in the past stood resilience in the face of global shocks with a culture of Savings. Global economic meltdown is worse than crude shock because in a meltdown, major economies are affected, capital flight becomes common in developing economies, crude oil customers reduce demand thereby pushing prices lower, the saddest part is that no country has money to borrow anyone during global meltdown, yet Nigeria Survived it with Soludo's brilliant strategy. A strategy that was blatantly refused by the previous administration when suggested by Iweala, recall that Iweala worked with Soludo in that NEEDS team. Fast forward to 2015, Three out of the top four producers of crude oil in Africa by their production, Nigeria, Angola, Algeria and Egypt were all in recession even though Egypt does not significantly depend on oil but her economy was shattered. Algeria escaped recession because by 2014, just like Nigeria in 2008, Algeria had a foreign reserve balance of $194b in a $156.1b economy (122% of GDP in savings).You can see that the Robust reserve of Algeria was their savior in this modern crude oil shock era. The previous administration in Nigeria boasted of leaving behind a paltry $19b for a $500b economy at the time (3.8% of GDP), that amount is not even enough to pay for imports let alone absorb global shocks, so Nigeria can be rightly described in late 2014 as an oil dependent economy with no savings. How important is this savings? Lets take our research to the Second largest producer of crude oil Angola, just like Nigeria with no significant savings, Angola's challenges needs no introduction, let facts speak for itself Angola suffered severe Forex & currency challenges just like Nigeria. According to Bloomberg They not only devalued their currency, they equally allowed it to float like Nigeria's Angola devalued its currency as the OPEC member sought to revive an economy still reeling from the oil-price crash four years ago. The kwanza fell 11 percent to 187.95 per dollar by 3:35 p.m. in Luanda and depreciated 10 percent to 221.75 against the euro. The move came a day after the central bank allowed the currency to weaken in its first auction of foreign exchange since announcing it would end a dollar peg that’s been in place since April 2016.....BloombergBorrowing to fund Budget deficits, just like Nigeria, Angola has borrowed to the point of requesting a bail out from the IMF https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/08/angola-says-to-request-4-5-bn-imf-loan-as-crisis-lingers/ Unemployment Rate in Angola increased to 20 percent in 2017 from 19.90 percent in 2016. https://tradingeconomics.com/angola/unemployment-rate Inflation in Angola was a whooping 23.67 percent in December 2017, data on the national statistics agency's website showed on Wednesday. Price growth on a month-on-month basis rose to 1.47 percent in January from 1.2 percent previously. Poverty in Angola According to Angola's 2001 MPI, more than 77% of the population was multidimensionally poor. ... The latest available World Bank figure for income poverty in Angola, from 2008, shows that 36.6% of the population is income poor. Angola's population is currently estimated at 29.7 million. I can go on and on the list is endless, as a matter of undeniable fact, Angola just like Nigeria are the largest producers in Africa, they practically did not save enough and they were hit hard by crude price shock. to balance the analysis, it will be unfair to discuss those that didn't save without giving kudos to those that saved, like i said previously, Algeria saved a whooping $194b when the going was good, as such its economy was immune to crude shock. Russia like we said though had currency challenges during the period under review ostensibly because of western sanctions, Russia had over $400b in reserves by ending of 2014. Saudi Arabia was immune to crude shock not without little currency & subsidy issues ostensibly because of its huge financing of the war in Yemen, they were sitting on a comfortable $732b by the end of 2014. My country men, you can see that this suffering was brought upon us by mismanagement by the same people that are warming up to continue from where fate has left us, if buhari had $100b in our foreign reserve in 2015, we wont be hungry today, we wont lose our jobs, we wont lose our manufacturing industries, this is the truth that shall set us free! Some even blamed it on Avengers attack of 2016 Niger delta avengers was a non issue, if you noticed, I expunged them from my initial analysis, here is why; We were in crude shock from late 2014, Avengers struck in 2016, since 2014, your GDP wasn't showing any growth but retrogression or doldrums meaning you were heading towards recession anyways as a result of crude shock. If Avengers did not strike, OPEC would have asked us to cut production to boost prices, read: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-28/opec-said-to-agree-on-first-oil-output-cut-in-eight-years So Avengers or any form of production cut at the time was a non issue. OPEC gave us production cut waiver because Nigeria has already declared force-majore in most of its crude oil export channels. Nigerian people, what is your present government doing to stem this tide that has shocked the fabrics of our nation to the Marrow? The vice president being the economic manager of the country Launched the ERGP, with it Nigeria even in recession was able to save $47b in our foreign reserve, at this pace, I have no doubt that this money will hit $100b in the next 4yrs, that is a guarantee that our economy will become immune to global shocks once again, not just crude shocks alone. (Algerian model) The moment that money crossed $40b mark, forex shortages disappeared, importers stopped complaining, manufacturers stopped complaining of dollar scarcity, debit cards relaxed their limits etc, that was a killer stroke in our economic recovery strategy, inflation immediately responded to the potency of the ERGP from 18.8% in 2017 to 11.23% in 2018. This reserve will boost investors confidence that the economy is liquid enough for profit repatriation, that is how the jobs will return, job creation is private sector driven, not govt. Among the three oil dependent economies in Africa that landed in recession within the same period, Nigeria was the first to exit recession, that was historical & mind blowing, despite fighting terrorism and with a massive population, we did it first before any other country. By Blocking loopholes Our Federal allocation that used to be a misery 311b naira in june 2016 is between 600-700b naira in presently. This volume if held steady will continue providing liquidity that will surely inflate the economy. Nigeria is building a Gas liquefying plant called the NLNG train 7 project, that will in a way increase revenue from Gas against depending on oil alone, there are other ongoing Gas projects like the AKK projects and other Gas for power projects, rightly put, the economy is being diversified towards gas. (Russian model) https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/07/nnpc-signs-agreement-for-seven-critical-gas-projects/ As you can see here, Manufacturing is gradually expanding, next will be jobs returning on its own https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2018/07/08/cbn-at-57-0-pmi-manufacturing-sector-expanded-in-june/amp/ We don't need Atiku's stealing to truncate an economic process already in recovery. In conclusion, I can state for a fact that the economic challenges of this country has nothing to do with Buhari under the circumstances he met on ground, we have a chance to fix culpability of blames where it rightly belongs on crude shock, or replace this government whose framework seems promising with another leadership of questionable integrity. Buhari is like a mechanic that was given a car to fix, only for the car owner to accuse him of being the problem of the car when he is yet to fix anything. We shall never go back to past governments whose inaction landed us in this mess in the first place. leadership in the past that we tasked to privatize our establishments, all failed save for the one that ended up in his pocket, yet he claimed to create Jobs? How many jobs were lost in that privatization scam where 56 government entities perished? Where is our NITEL, ALSCON, Nicon Insurance to mention a few? Leadership that claims to create jobs but his company PRODECO folded up? Leadership that claim to create jobs yet it was Buhari that sacked foreigners littered everywhere in his company, does an ordinary logistics company need that much foreigners? Leadership that is a case study for corruption and money laundering by the US Senate committee on Homeland security, Leadership that preaches restructuring but enjoys monopoly in Niger delta sea ports? Atiku is a walking scam, may we not walk into the scam called Atiku because of lies peddled and perfected by the same holocausts that landed us in bondage, every scam comes with a loud noise, say No to Atiku, we cant move from Abacha loot to Atiku loot at this perilous time. Fraudulent Leadership that wants to sell 90% of NNPC robbing us of 74% of our forex needs, Leadership that wants to spend $90b annually building infrastructures when Nigeria earns less than $30b annually. It will be very dangerous and retrogressive to have a leader that is in bad terms with the international community, remember that the united states is the Fulcrum of our war against insurgency, one will argue that if America doesn't sell arms to us we go to Russia, the world works differently now under Donald trump, ask yourself, why did Jonathan not go to those people when America sanctioned him under the Leahy's ban? Yet he sat idly and watched Boko haram slaughter tens of thousands eventually took LGA's? American ban is as good as a global ban, recall how South Africa seized funds Jonathan wanted to use for arms purchase, please dont ask me what is South Africa's business with a US ban, that is how the world works. In 2017, the US congress passed a law called Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, CAATSA to promote the America first agenda while sanctioning countries that do business with American's enemies. If Atiku (God forbid) becomes the president as much as thinks about going to Russia for help, Nigeria will end up in CAATSA web, and that is when the true Hunger will manifest. Can you live under a US sanction like North Korea and Iran? can you live with a Boko haram that is out of control? A boko haram that once bombed Abuja for fun but Today the once Almighty Shekau is in hiding? what about other support we get from the US like the USAID? free immunization? Polio prevention? HIV and AIDS vaccines? Machinery and oil and gas technologies etc? are you willing to throw away all these because of a criminal whose greed led him to commit atrocities in the United states or hate for Buhari that is built on lies? When faced with these realities, Atiku will never achieve anything, rather he will steal what we have left and disappear like he did in the US. May God help us!! Watch Peter obi summarize this analysis https://twitter.com/i/status/1058007016810123264 3 Likes 1 Share |
| Politics › Re: Nairaland 2019 Presidential Election Poll: Voting Thread by jpphilips(m): 7:46pm On Feb 10, 2019 |
IS BUHARI TRULY RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR ECONOMIC WOES? A lot have been said about Buhari, how he brought hardship on Nigerians, how he is responsible for all the suffering in Nigeria, is that theory backed with facts and global economic realities or the shenanigans of few individuals basking in the Euphoria of ignorance? Since I must make a choice between our present loud political gladiators, I armed myself with Economics textbooks and news archive, here is what i discovered. Nigeria an oil producing and oil dependent economy suffered a global economic hit called crude oil price shock it is the sudden drop in price of crude oil in the commodity trading market, it has occurred at different times in History nearly every decade. Countries that are hardest hit by crude shock are basically countries that not only produce crude oil in significant amount but solely depend on it as their foreign exchange earner. While oil shocks have asymmetric effects in oil-exporting developing countries; lower oil prices lead to major revenue cuts and ensuing stagnation in the economy, but higher oil prices and accompanying higher revenues do not translate into sustained economic growth. What are the effects of crude shock in oil producing developing economies? Forex scarcity: Most developing economies whether oil producing or not, depend on importation to survive, where foreign currency becomes scarce, industries, individuals that have significant need for forex will likely close shops giving birth to the second problem unemployment then finally the master Recession. Unemployment: When industries no longer have forex to buy spare parts, can no longer afford raw materials, production slows, sales slows, profit eroded, workers sacked, since the volume of activities in the economy is directly proportional to the GDP, the GDP contracts and birth another economic monster Recession. Recession is a chain reaction of unpalatable economic events that shows the economy is not experiencing growth but contracting, lets look at the effects of recession, high energy cost (energy in most developing economies are subsidized one way or another) crude shock and eventually recession erodes government revenues till a point where it could no longer afford subsidies and other things it used to afford. In Nigeria where our Electricity Generation companies are subsidized, petroleum products are subsidized,you will understand that such partial or complete subsidy removal will quickly skyrocket the cost of living generally, transportation, cost of food etc are equally affected that leads to another monster called Inflation. Inflation: is defined as a phenomenon where huge bills are in search of few goods, how is that possible? when the industries that produce goods closed down, imports could not be sustained due to Forex shortages where will the goods come from? the absence of those goods while the bills remain triggers inflation, causes hunger and eventually poverty and devaluation of local currency. Devaluation is when global reserve currencies trade higher than your currency, of course you recall that an economy in crude shock first suffers Forex shortages, that robs the central bank (in the case of Nigeria) the ability to fix the currency at a reasonable exchange rate. The local currency is allowed to float along a band the cbn thinks may not be too hurtful on the economy. Forex ban is placed on certain commodities, debit cards like Visa, Mastercard et al are all placed on monthly transaction limits as a reflection of the reality of forex shortages. Okonjo iweala then finance minister and coordinator of the economy actually warned Nigerians in 2014 long before buhari came that the level of mismanagement will bring hunger to us, read here: https://www.premiumtimesng.com/business/171145-brace-tougher-times-ahead-okonjo-iweala-tells-nigerians.html If okonjo iweala saw this hunger in 2014, warned us about it, how can a sane person accuse buhari of bringing hardship? Between 2015-2017, all these happened in the Nigerian economy, then I asked "are we the only oil dependent economies in the world? why us alone? The answer took me to several countries in the world and I realized that other oil producing countries dont depend on oil alone, countries like Russia though the largest producer of crude oil in the world, has a robust defense industry that contribute significantly to its GDP, Russia equally enjoys large market shares in Gas distribution in Eurasia, by the time crude oil shock hit, Russia had over $400b in reserves, It became clear that the only economic move that could hold off crude oil shock and other global economic shocks is a robust foreign exchange reserves (Savings). Permit me to take you down our economic history, in 2008 during the global melt down, the then CBN governor prof. Chukwuma Charles soludo bragged that the Nigerian economy is immune to global shocks? That would have sounded ridiculous but it is true, what did he do? they launched an economic strategy called National Economic Empowerment And Development Strategy NEEDS. This strategy recommended that once crude oil is sold, the balance above the budget benchmark is kept in an account called the ECA, by the time that government left and another took over in 2007, both the ECA & Foreign reserve account held over $68b in reserves, in a $200b economy at the time, that reserve was significant enough to whither any storm that came the way of our economy, Much later into the crisis, Nigeria later relaxed its exchange rate to 155 to a dollar. now we know that Nigeria had in the past stood resilience in the face of global shocks with a culture of Savings. Global economic meltdown is worse than crude shock because in a meltdown, major economies are affected, capital flight becomes common in developing economies, crude oil customers reduce demand thereby pushing prices lower, the saddest part is that no country has money to borrow anyone during global meltdown, yet Nigeria Survived it with Soludo's brilliant strategy. A strategy that was blatantly refused by the previous administration when suggested by Iweala, recall that Iweala worked with Soludo in that NEEDS team. Fast forward to 2015, Three out of the top four producers of crude oil in Africa by their production, Nigeria, Angola, Algeria and Egypt were all in recession even though Egypt does not significantly depend on oil but her economy was shattered. Algeria escaped recession because by 2014, just like Nigeria in 2008, Algeria had a foreign reserve balance of $194b in a $156.1b economy (122% of GDP in savings).You can see that the Robust reserve of Algeria was their savior in this modern crude oil shock era. The previous administration in Nigeria boasted of leaving behind a paltry $19b for a $500b economy at the time (3.8% of GDP), that amount is not even enough to pay for imports let alone absorb global shocks, so Nigeria can be rightly described in late 2014 as an oil dependent economy with no savings. How important is this savings? Lets take our research to the Second largest producer of crude oil Angola, just like Nigeria with no significant savings, Angola's challenges needs no introduction, let facts speak for itself Angola suffered severe Forex & currency challenges just like Nigeria. According to Bloomberg They not only devalued their currency, they equally allowed it to float like Nigeria's Angola devalued its currency as the OPEC member sought to revive an economy still reeling from the oil-price crash four years ago. The kwanza fell 11 percent to 187.95 per dollar by 3:35 p.m. in Luanda and depreciated 10 percent to 221.75 against the euro. The move came a day after the central bank allowed the currency to weaken in its first auction of foreign exchange since announcing it would end a dollar peg that’s been in place since April 2016.....BloombergBorrowing to fund Budget deficits, just like Nigeria, Angola has borrowed to the point of requesting a bail out from the IMF https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/08/angola-says-to-request-4-5-bn-imf-loan-as-crisis-lingers/ Unemployment Rate in Angola increased to 20 percent in 2017 from 19.90 percent in 2016. https://tradingeconomics.com/angola/unemployment-rate Inflation in Angola was a whooping 23.67 percent in December 2017, data on the national statistics agency's website showed on Wednesday. Price growth on a month-on-month basis rose to 1.47 percent in January from 1.2 percent previously. Poverty in Angola According to Angola's 2001 MPI, more than 77% of the population was multidimensionally poor. ... The latest available World Bank figure for income poverty in Angola, from 2008, shows that 36.6% of the population is income poor. Angola's population is currently estimated at 29.7 million. I can go on and on the list is endless, as a matter of undeniable fact, Angola just like Nigeria are the largest producers in Africa, they practically did not save enough and they were hit hard by crude price shock. to balance the analysis, it will be unfair to discuss those that didn't save without giving kudos to those that saved, like i said previously, Algeria saved a whooping $194b when the going was good, as such its economy was immune to crude shock. Russia like we said though had currency challenges during the period under review ostensibly because of western sanctions, Russia had over $400b in reserves by ending of 2014. Saudi Arabia was immune to crude shock not without little currency & subsidy issues ostensibly because of its huge financing of the war in Yemen, they were sitting on a comfortable $732b by the end of 2014. My country men, you can see that this suffering was brought upon us by mismanagement by the same people that are warming up to continue from where fate has left us, if buhari had $100b in our foreign reserve in 2015, we wont be hungry today, we wont lose our jobs, we wont lose our manufacturing industries, this is the truth that shall set us free! Some even blamed it on Avengers attack of 2016 Niger delta avengers was a non issue, if you noticed, I expunged them from my initial analysis, here is why; We were in crude shock from late 2014, Avengers struck in 2016, since 2014, your GDP wasn't showing any growth but retrogression or doldrums meaning you were heading towards recession anyways as a result of crude shock. If Avengers did not strike, OPEC would have asked us to cut production to boost prices, read: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-28/opec-said-to-agree-on-first-oil-output-cut-in-eight-years So Avengers or any form of production cut at the time was a non issue. OPEC gave us production cut waiver because Nigeria has already declared force-majore in most of its crude oil export channels. Nigerian people, what is your present government doing to stem this tide that has shocked the fabrics of our nation to the Marrow? The vice president being the economic manager of the country Launched the ERGP, with it Nigeria even in recession was able to save $47b in our foreign reserve, at this pace, I have no doubt that this money will hit $100b in the next 4yrs, that is a guarantee that our economy will become immune to global shocks once again, not just crude shocks alone. (Algerian model) The moment that money crossed $40b mark, forex shortages disappeared, importers stopped complaining, manufacturers stopped complaining of dollar scarcity, debit cards relaxed their limits etc, that was a killer stroke in our economic recovery strategy, inflation immediately responded to the potency of the ERGP from 18.8% in 2017 to 11.23% in 2018. This reserve will boost investors confidence that the economy is liquid enough for profit repatriation, that is how the jobs will return, job creation is private sector driven, not govt. Among the three oil dependent economies in Africa that landed in recession within the same period, Nigeria was the first to exit recession, that was historical & mind blowing, despite fighting terrorism and with a massive population, we did it first before any other country. By Blocking loopholes Our Federal allocation that used to be a misery 311b naira in june 2016 is between 600-700b naira in presently. This volume if held steady will continue providing liquidity that will surely inflate the economy. Nigeria is building a Gas liquefying plant called the NLNG train 7 project, that will in a way increase revenue from Gas against depending on oil alone, there are other ongoing Gas projects like the AKK projects and other Gas for power projects, rightly put, the economy is being diversified towards gas. (Russian model) https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/07/nnpc-signs-agreement-for-seven-critical-gas-projects/ As you can see here, Manufacturing is gradually expanding, next will be jobs returning on its own https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2018/07/08/cbn-at-57-0-pmi-manufacturing-sector-expanded-in-june/amp/ We don't need Atiku's stealing to truncate an economic process already in recovery. In conclusion, I can state for a fact that the economic challenges of this country has nothing to do with Buhari under the circumstances he met on ground, we have a chance to fix culpability of blames where it rightly belongs on crude shock, or replace this government whose framework seems promising with another leadership of questionable integrity. Buhari is like a mechanic that was given a car to fix, only for the car owner to accuse him of being the problem of the car when he is yet to fix anything. We shall never go back to past governments whose inaction landed us in this mess in the first place. leadership in the past that we tasked to privatize our establishments, all failed save for the one that ended up in his pocket, yet he claimed to create Jobs? How many jobs were lost in that privatization scam where 56 government entities perished? Where is our NITEL, ALSCON, Nicon Insurance to mention a few? Leadership that claims to create jobs but his company PRODECO folded up? Leadership that claim to create jobs yet it was Buhari that sacked foreigners littered everywhere in his company, does an ordinary logistics company need that much foreigners? Leadership that is a case study for corruption and money laundering by the US Senate committee on Homeland security, Leadership that preaches restructuring but enjoys monopoly in Niger delta sea ports? Atiku is a walking scam, may we not walk into the scam called Atiku because of lies peddled and perfected by the same holocausts that landed us in bondage, every scam comes with a loud noise, say No to Atiku, we cant move from Abacha loot to Atiku loot at this perilous time. Fraudulent Leadership that wants to sell 90% of NNPC robbing us of 74% of our forex needs, Leadership that wants to spend $90b annually building infrastructures when Nigeria earns less than $30b annually. It will be very dangerous and retrogressive to have a leader that is in bad terms with the international community, remember that the united states is the Fulcrum of our war against insurgency, one will argue that if America doesn't sell arms to us we go to Russia, the world works differently now under Donald trump, ask yourself, why did Jonathan not go to those people when America sanctioned him under the Leahy's ban? Yet he sat idly and watched Boko haram slaughter tens of thousands eventually took LGA's? American ban is as good as a global ban, recall how South Africa seized funds Jonathan wanted to use for arms purchase, please dont ask me what is South Africa's business with a US ban, that is how the world works. In 2017, the US congress passed a law called Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, CAATSA to promote the America first agenda while sanctioning countries that do business with American's enemies. If Atiku (God forbid) becomes the president as much as thinks about going to Russia for help, Nigeria will end up in CAATSA web, and that is when the true Hunger will manifest. Can you live under a US sanction like North Korea and Iran? can you live with a Boko haram that is out of control? A boko haram that once bombed Abuja for fun but Today the once Almighty Shekau is in hiding? what about other support we get from the US like the USAID? free immunization? Polio prevention? HIV and AIDS vaccines? Machinery and oil and gas technologies etc? are you willing to throw away all these because of a criminal whose greed led him to commit atrocities in the United states or hate for Buhari that is built on lies? When faced with these realities, Atiku will never achieve anything, rather he will steal what we have left and disappear like he did in the US. May God help us!! Watch Peter obi summarize this analysis https://twitter.com/i/status/1058007016810123264 1 Like |
| Politics › Re: Boko Haram Captures 5 Towns In Adamawa With Chants Of Alalahu Alkbar by jpphilips(m): 10:23pm On Feb 04, 2019 |
oilPUSSY:Don't worry we know what is confusing you, that stuff needs more oil. https://nationaldailyng.com/jonathan-shared-in-40-m-ransom-for-chibok-girls-release-aide-tells-efcc/ 1 Like |
| Foreign Affairs › Re: Battle Field Discussion (picture/video) Of African Military . by jpphilips(m): 10:37am On Feb 04, 2019 |
bidexiii:Wont be long before BHT infiltrates them, give diversionary information to the army that may lead to an ambush. |
| Politics › Re: The Cjn’s Removal: The Lamps Are Going Out All Over Nigeria- Opinion by jpphilips(m): 8:40am On Jan 27, 2019 |
Barondenigeria:Corruption constituency talking rubbish, did Buhari open bank accounts for the CJN or Buhari asked him not to declare it? Even Buhari declared the hut he inherited from his father so who the fvck is a bloody CJN a fvcking Buhari appointee? He is the head of the Judiciary and so what? He shouldn't follow the rules? Trump fired Jeff sessions for less cry us a river. If Onnoghen wants my support, he should transfer the balance on those accounts to me. If he wasn't fired the same losers will whine that Buhari condones corruption among his appointees. 1 Like |
| Family › Re: Pls Advise.my Wife Is Making Me Sick. by jpphilips(m): 8:10am On Jan 27, 2019 |
Contumely:Is that one a husband? Smell coffee bros! |
| Politics › Re: Am Not Buhari, Promise And Fail - Atiku Blasts APC by jpphilips(m): 7:20pm On Jan 14, 2019 |
Tundemuttee:Privatization failure that couldn't account for Nitel, AlSCON, Nicon insurance etc is making promises to kids of yesterday, lol 2 Likes |
| Politics › Re: The Difference Between Atiku And Buhari by jpphilips(m): 7:15pm On Jan 14, 2019 |
NigerDeltan:Under the PDP's inefectual buffoon https://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/10/bloodbath-as-tiv-fulani-clash-in-benue/ 1 Like |
| Politics › Re: The Difference Between Atiku And Buhari by jpphilips(m): 7:10pm On Jan 14, 2019 |
NigerDeltan:2004 & 2006 are Buhari's governments? Why don't you upgrade to Tramadol, inhaling sewage is killing you slowly. 2 Likes |
| Politics › Re: Reason Why Buhari Should Withdraw Charge Against Justice Onnoghen -femi Falana by jpphilips(m): 7:07pm On Jan 14, 2019 |
Adeitanajoke:So if the NJC refuses to act what next? We sleep? 1 Like |
| Politics › Re: The Difference Between Atiku And Buhari by jpphilips(m): 7:02pm On Jan 14, 2019 |
poyebad:The right question to ask is; can Nigeria afford Atiku? if he was caught red handed laundering $40m in 2006, use inflationary indices to extrapolate what he is worth in corruption in 2018. If he could sell 56 institutions in 2004 and planning to sell NNPC in 2019, trust me you can't afford Atiku's corruption. Comparing Buhari with Atiku is like comparing an electric pole with pen!s. 3 Likes |
| Politics › Re: Onnoghen: Prepare To Exist Without Niger Delta Oil, Militants Tell Nigerians by jpphilips(m): 6:57pm On Jan 14, 2019 |
[quote author=tzoracle post=74751334][/quote]So threatening the federation and blowing up pipelines will salvage their environment by your own spiritual incantations? |
| Politics › Re: Onnoghen: Prepare To Exist Without Niger Delta Oil, Militants Tell Nigerians by jpphilips(m): 6:54pm On Jan 14, 2019 |
feji12:They are equally threatening their federal allocation, from 2019, SS will forfeit their federal allocation once a bomb goes off. 1 Like |
| Politics › Re: Onnoghen: Prepare To Exist Without Niger Delta Oil, Militants Tell Nigerians by jpphilips(m): 6:52pm On Jan 14, 2019 |
Limitednow:Village miscreants calling themselves militants, I don't blame you, I blame boko haram that has made the NA look like boys brigade. 1 Like |
| Politics › Re: Presidential Debate: Don’t Send Tinubu, You Must Go – Ohanaeze Tells Buhari by jpphilips(m): 6:46pm On Jan 14, 2019 |
BrokenTV:Unfortunately the poll next month will remind you that Buhari ignored Jonathan's debate yet sent him to Otuoke in an Ambulance, Atiku should try his luck! 1 Like |
| Politics › Re: Presidential Debate: Don’t Send Tinubu, You Must Go – Ohanaeze Tells Buhari by jpphilips(m): 6:44pm On Jan 14, 2019 |
Ohaneze that couldn't send Jubril Kanu away is asking Buhari to go? Let's have a good laugh!! 1 Like |
| Politics › Re: 2019: Atiku, Secondus, Saraki Send Amazing Message To Buhari, INEC by jpphilips(m): 6:43pm On Jan 14, 2019 |
Kitarah:What is your academic qualification? Suppose you hawk gala under Igombe bridge who will expect you to understand the dynamics if global economics? 1 Like |
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