₦airaland Forum

kanicorp9:
Details from the invitations letters being sent to guests by the book presentation committee, indicated that Buhari, Obasanjo and Atiku are among the dignitaries expected to grace the ceremony.

Former President Goodluck Jonathan has invited President Muhammadu Buhari, former president Olusegun Obasanjo and the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to the launch of his new book entitled: ‘My Transition Hours’.

The event is billed to take place at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja on November 20.

President Buhari will be the special guest of honour; Obasanjo will chair the event, while Atiku has also been invited by Jonathan as a special guest.

Other dignitaries invited to participate in the official presentation are the former Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Salihu Alfa Belgore, who will serve as the book reviewer; Gen. Theophilus Y. Danjuma (rtd), will play the role of chief book presenter while Bayelsa State Governor, Seriake Dickson, will be the chief host.

Many African heads of state, former leaders and international personalities are also expected to grace the occasion, including President Alassane Ouattara of Cote d’Ivoire and former Ghanaian President, John Dramani Mahama.

A sample of the invitation letter signed by the Chairman of the Book Presentation Committee, Bashir Yuguda, stated that the book “gives some insight into the 2015 presidential election and also reflects on some key decisions by the former president while in office.”


https://wiki9ja.com.ng/gists/just-in-jonathan-invites-buhari-obasanjo-atiku-to-launch

RomanReigns:
Biafra, Biafra über alles, Über alles in der Welt. Alles Gute De Führer Nnamdi Kanu

Airforce01:
I hope Buhari concedes defeat in 2019 like Jonathan peacefully did in 2015

Juliusmalema:
This time around na Buhari transition hours

jpphilips:
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 economy?

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 to 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.

Between 2015-2018, 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 us 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 comes 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.


Fast forward to 2015, 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 $90b in a $156.1b economy.You can see that the Robust reserve of Algeria was their savior in this modern crude shock era. The previous administration in Nigeria boasted of leaving behind a paltry $19b for a $500b economy at the time, that amount is not even enough to pay for imports let alone absorb global economic 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.



Borrowing 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 save a whooping $90b 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.

Some even blamed it on Avengers attack of 2016

Niger delta avengers was a non issue, if you noticed, I expunged them from my analysis, here is why;
You 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.

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 EGRP, 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, not just crude shocks. (Algerian model)
The moment that money crossed $40b, forex shortages disappeared, importers stopped complaining, debit cards relaxed their limits etc, that was a killer stroke in our economic recovery strategy.inflation has responded to the potency of the EGRP to 11.23% from 18.8%.

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 (Russian model)
https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/07/nnpc-signs-agreement-for-seven-critical-gas-projects/

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. past government whose inaction landed us in this mess in the first place.
A leadership in the past that we tasked to privatize our industries, 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 lie 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.

millhouse:
what is this one saying .. do I know the looting going on now in this govt ?