₦airaland Forum

Kagawa10:
Nope, it was because Jonathan looted our foreign reserve from $48b to $26b nor did he save at the time of plenty. Get sense.
PDP, neva again.

But if the currency was devalued on time , there wouldn't have e been a recession in the first place , let your father get sense !! Idiot

Kagawa10:
Wahala tie ni yen.



Canada is a developed country yet is suffering from this sweeping recession but you expect a developing country as Nigeria whose economy is oil dependent especially at a time oil is selling at a low $50 rate, not to be in recession?

If the stupid Jonathan hadn't looted us dry at a time oil was selling at $110 rate, if he had saved more as well as constructed major infrastructures, we wouldn't be suffering at this time oil is selling at $50 rate. Better still, if the klepto hadn't also looted our foreign reserve from $48b to $26b, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in.

Despite earning 60% less than the previous regime, this admnistration has come up with several social, agricultural and infrastructural projects. Look at Lagos-Ibadan road and other roads being constructed, our new railway lines, new rice mills, cheap fertilizer production, Npower social schemes, tradermoni etc yet you expect us to vote in a useless party that destroyed our economy again?

Atiku, neva again.

The main cause of the recession was not low oil price .the main cause was that buhari refused to devalue our currency causing the mass Exodus of foreign investors due to lack of forex , ....then...economy crashed

grandstar:
The country practiced a floating exchange rate policy from 1999 - 2015 and it served the country very well. Why fix it when it ain't broken?

Nigeria has a positive trade balance so I have no idea where you get your stats from.

For a country like Nigeria withpopulation of 200m to be dependent on Dangote's refinery to stabilise the exchange rate is archaic. Nigeria by now should be refining at least 3m barrels daily but is looking up to Dangote to rescue it is sad and regressive

Switzerland with about 8.5m people imports $200b worth of goods annually yet Nigeria with its heft population barely manages $50b and we are talking about overimportation! The country barely imports anything in real terms in the first place!

From the grow the naira gang

Sweetguy25:
The obiagelli thread made me start this thread and believe me when I say that most Nigerians think like this. They simply multiply the price of crude oil by the amount of barrels exported and believe that's what we earn. They also believe that this money earned will turn Nigeria to Dubai in three years. This level of ignorance is destructive.

The thing is that with that kind of reasoning most Nigerians have , understanding that the matter on ground is a very serious one is difficult.

Most of them don't even understand that Amazon alone will foot our budget for 150 years non stop.

theoldpretender:
Unfortunately the guy is right

What even makes it more painful is that Nigerians grumble all day about hardship, and about PDP and APC, but on election day, they go back to APC and PDP.

Better the devil they know than the angelic beings they do not know.

Another thing. If Moghalu, Sowore or Durotoye win, the National Assembly won't let them make any difference at all. They would be frustrated out.

Heck even the governors of states will frustrate them

kernel001:
Please... Stop being illusional. I'm talking of 2016-2018 global corruption index, it's astronomical since Buhari came into power.
Nigeria rates 148 on Transparency International index, highest of all time, NBS said same thing.

And funny enough it dropped during Jonathans time

grandstar:
Things may not have been heavenly but they are not as bad as now

Some decades ago, there was a rumoured spat between the president of socialist dirt poor Tanzania who called the more prosperous neighbouring Kenya ""ä dog eat dog country" a condemning reference to the mixed economy it practiced

This so annoyed Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya that he called Tanzania "a dog eat nothing country"!

The country is gradually moving towards "dog eat nothing country"

grandstar:
Are you focused on the message or the messenger? Can't you see the economy is dead?

The economy needs to grow by at least 7% annually to create enough jobs for those entering the economy yearly. Presently it is only growing by 2% and that means it is far off from creating enough jobs. Joblessness is rising very fast. Presently 40% of the working population is either unemployed or underemployed. Things are really bad!

It is these fundamentals that economists look at. That is what is scaring OBJ and others as the country can't afford to have another 4 years of such growth

Corruption can be bad but countries economies can still grow quite fast despite a high level of corruption. Taiwan is now a rich countries despite high levels of corruption in the past and even today.

Italy still has lots of corruption yet is a rich country today. We exaggerate the level of destruction corruption can do. What really causes a lot of devastation are bad policies and not corruption

PDP had lots of good policies and that is why the economy was able to grow by at least 6% annually during their time in power despite high levels of corruption.

Buhari introduced some bad policies that are today responsible for the miserable economic growth the country is faced today.

If he had just kept the policies he met, or even improved them and then fought corruption, the economy would have been ina much better state today! His refusal to head warnings from Sanusi, Utomi and Soludo to change course was his undoing

And for your info, corruption has been quite high during this government! The exchange control policies which he introduced and which triggered a recession within 3 quarters are a major source of sleaze.

For instance when he foolishly pegged the exchange rate at 197 to a $1 in 2015 upon assumption of office. Lamido Sanusi condemned this policy requesting they revert to the floating exchange rate policy of the past which served the country well

When the black market rate started diverging massively from the official rate of 197 it led to massive rounf tripping where people buy at the official rate and simply sell at the black market rate. At a time the black market rate was as high as 350 which official rate was 197!

Lamido Sanusi said people will just buy $10m at 197 and sell at 300 and make N1b overnight

That was what Buhari's relations were doing! People would come to meet them in order to get forex at these cheap rates and resell. That is the corruption OBJ and most people are referring to. It is very big business even till today as only the well connected can get at these rates!

Even now, the official rate is 305 while the black market is around 360,a difference of N55 or 18%! Lamido Sanusi said the difference should never be more than 3% as anything above encourages round tripping.

And yet failed so miserably in fighting poverty , unemployment , improving education , combating insecurity , improving infrastructure .improving health

High economic growth is not everything . Just look at South Africa and Namibia.

P.s - i am not supporting buhari

grandstar:
You have made some fine points.

The profligacy that led to the shocking figures you mentioned we're actually results of Jonathan's reckless profligacy, the first was the raising of workers salaries from 5,500 to 18,000.

Another was the petrol subsidies which gulped massive amounts of money.

But Buhari's medicine was worse than the disease plunging the economy into a needless recession. The recession wasn't caused by the drop in oil price but actually by exchange control policies introduced by the Buhari's government which Lamido Sanusi condemned to high heavens and have been a major source of sleaze in this government. Other economists like Soludo, Utomi and the Organised Private Sector too condemned it.

Honesty does not justify economic illiteracy.

Nigeria apparently didn't learn shit from the oil boom disaster

theoldpretender:
Ideally, we'd all vote out PDP and APC and bring in new guys...

Unfortunately, most Nigerians love APC and PDP. Most Nigerians don't want angelic beings they don't know.

It's almost as if Nigerians are not fit to choose leaders for themselves

grandstar:
In some Caribbean countries, as many as 85% of children are born out of wedlock

Utter nonsense. Serves the man right!

I won't be surprised if that man is an absentee father to many kids already

Serves him right!

Jesus!!!!

Blue3k:
Culture, economic policies and geography matter. I dont think thats true aboutno African country having standard of living of Ukraine. Even sub-Saharan countries like Seychelles and Mauritius are better than Ukraine.



People escape from crippling poverty and get higher standard of living overall. The issue was people wanted better they're opportunist. Mexico isn't that bad but people would rather be in United states.

Apart from these two island countries

Blue3k:
Culture, economic policies and geography matter. I dont think thats true aboutno African country having standard of living of Ukraine. Even sub-Saharan countries like Seychelles and Mauritius are better than Ukraine.



People escape from crippling poverty and get higher standard of living overall. The issue was people wanted better they're opportunist. Mexico isn't that bad but people would rather be in United states.

.

grandstar:
I haven't fully studied the data but it may boil down to the fact that the former Soviet countries had well educated citizens. So even if they may be poor, they won't be wretched.

Botswanans I doubt are as well educated as the Ukrainaians. Botswana, though an African shining star has done poorly in creating jobs. Despite a buoyant economy during Apartheid days, thousands trooped to work in the dreadful mines in South Africa. This was absurd.

Lord !!! Then what's now the point of economic growth with nothing to show for it !!!!!?

grandstar:
I haven't fully studied the data but it may boil down to the fact that the former Soviet countries had well educated citizens. So even if they may be poor, they won't be wretched.

Botswanans I doubt are as well educated as the Ukrainaians. Botswana, though an African shining star has done poorly in creating jobs. Despite a buoyant economy during Apartheid days, thousands trooped to work in the dreadful mines in South Africa. This was absurd.

It still seems very weird and atrocious to me.Again I still wonder why Ukraine with it's gdp per capita of merely 3133 dollars does not look like a typical Africa dystopia. Heck No African country enjoys a living standard up to that of Ukraine , not even Botswana or Namibia is even close , whether in education nor in infrastructure or wages.

Echine:

My concerns is dat Nigerians are too sentimental.

The only reason most of afonja peoples want buha back is bcoz dia brother is dia.
Not dat he did anything since 4yrs now.


I was one of those ranting Change back in 2015,
But came to realize dat diz present administration is the worst ever since the creation of Nigeria.

See this mumu , you think yorubas are a tribalistic lot like u

Despite the fact that Botswana has a gdp per capita of 8443 dollars and Ukraine has a gdp per capita of 3133 dollars , why does Botswana have 16.1 percent of it's people living on less than a dollar a day while Ukraine has 0.1 percent ?

Nigeria has a higher gdp per capita than India , why is practically 45 percent of the Nigerians population extremely poor while that of India is 3.6 percent , despite the fact that Nigeria has a higher gdp per capita.

Cc grandstar , theoldpretender,blue3k, omohayek

Hundreddegrees:
Seriously, Nigerian politicians don't know how to campaign, you're building roads but putting the country in great debt

How much GDP did you achieve?

How many jobs did you create?

What feat did you achieve in technological advancements?

How many people did your govt lift out of poverty?

How well is the economic growth?

Nigeria really needs something different but it's quite unfortunate we are not even close to getting that yet

Do Nigerians even care if politicians can campaign or not ? All they care about is if the politician can share garri and rice or not .

Johnrake69:
Yes... It's funny how Sanwolu was speaking about restructuring and devolution of powers at the federal level when state governments have refused to grant local government autonomy.


We can't continue this system of government that centralises the affairs of a state to an office. Devolution of powers at all level is what we need. So if a bad Road exist in your ward you mobilise and march straight to the local government Chairman's office.

Why is this so ?

theoldpretender:
Hmm, you PDP people are funny.

As an alternative to corrupt APC, you give us corrupt PDP led by a guy who was in APC before,and helped give us Bubu

APC and PDP are the same. For a better Nigeria, vote both of them out.

Nigerians will say that they can't vote for the others because they are neither pdp nor apc.

theoldpretender:
1.No, ASUU strike won't cease under Atiku....and saying that Atiku is good for universities because he established one in his home state is like saying Buhari is good for universities too...since at least 4 were established under his administration.

2. The problem is, under the terms of the 2009 agreement., ASUU got a promise from FG to pay 3 trillion in extra funding for universites over the next 2 years. That funding has been beaten down to 1.1 trillion over 5 years.

3.With oil prices falling...Atiku is not going to get funding needed...

4.Plus...as far as I am concerned, Universities in Nigeria need more than 2 trillion annually just to keep fees low.

5.The real issue around the strike is that neither ASUU nor the government wants to face the cold reality of raised fees....instead they pretend we have the money, somehow...when we don't.

That can never ever happen

theoldpretender:
1.China persecutes Christians...even till this day. The only churches that are allowed to operate are churches that have ther sermons approved by government minders.

2. China is developed....[b]because they don't have enough resources [/b]to be selling and sharing the money...so they had to go industrial.


When we tell you Nigerians to stop arguing over oil money...or whether the Hausas are taking away all our oil money, or the Igbos want Biafra so that they can chop oil money....and instead use your resources in your state to build an industry like Dangote and Innoson do...you people will laugh at us...and then go and vote people whose only idea is how to share money

Even those chanting for restructuring...most of them want more money. Actual development they don't want.

Go and vote right people into office. Stop all this Sai Barber and Atikuloot jokes and games. We need leaders who will take us away from our chop and quench mentality.

Heck , look at Ethiopia , no resources but still double digits economic growth back to back since year 2000!!!!

theoldpretender:
China has a huge racism problem....yes, there are black guys making it there (I even heard of one guy, originally from Niger Republic, who is even a millionaire...but that's after twenty years of hardship and hustle...plus he happened to be in the right place at the right time too)...but there is a lot of very racist attitudes.

One Gabonese guy , who has lived in China for 3 decades, married , even speaks the language fluently, and is settled there...was racially abused while walking with his wife one evening. After three decades....

Asian countries and racism is like shoe and shoelace

theoldpretender:
China has a huge racism problem....yes, there are black guys making it there (I even heard of one guy, originally from Niger Republic, who is even a millionaire...but that's after twenty years of hardship and hustle...plus he happened to be in the right place at the right time too)...but there is a lot of very racist attitudes.

One Gabonese guy , who has lived in China for 3 decades, married , even speaks the language fluently, and is settled there...was racially abused while walking with his wife one evening. After three decades....

Asian countries and racism is like shoe and dhoelace

greenprince:
Totally correct!
And unfortunately people fail to understand and keep seeing people like Orban like an anti-christ. He's a shrewd politician yes, but I don't think he's a bad person.

I'm African but I buy his idea and that of Putin. If I was in their shoes, I'd most likely do same.
[b]
Let almighty Saudi, Kuwait, Brunei and Qatar that are filthy rich, open their borders at least to their Muslim brothers from third world and conflict ridden countrie[/b]s.

Saudi wey no dey reason Palestine refugees matter

omohayek:
It isn't really something "a country" knows, it's something discovered at the level of individual firms. For example, the British didn't think Nigeria had any particular comparative advantage in cocoa production, and their original plan was to force Africans off the land into large plantations; it was only through the initiative of the native farmers in the Western Region that cocoa farming took off and became recognized after the fact as an area of comparative advantage.

To give a more recent example, who could have foreseen that movie-making would prove to be an area of comparative advantage for Nigeria, and that Nollywood would one day become amongst the biggest earners of non-oil revenue? Certainly not any of the politicians or civil servants who were busy making futile plans to throw more money at white elephants like Ajaokuta.

Just about the only thing competent governments can really do is to work on things like higher-quality mass education, a highly stable and rational regulatory environment, fast and corruption-free courts, policing that keeps crime down to low levels, a transparent and stable currency regime, etc. No Nigerian government has ever done a decent job of a single one of these things, so it's not as if there's room to spare for fancy industrial policies which haven't worked even in much better run countries like the UK or Japan. The key thing is to empower - and here I mean it in the real sense rather than Nigerian style "empowerment" (aka misusing government funds to hand out gifts to a few) - ordinary citizens to start and grow new businesses, whatever those may be, instead of trying to second-guess the market by favoring one kind of business over another.

Woow !!! I never knew that about Nollywood .

In your opinion, how can the govt make Nollywood more profitable and attractive to investors ?

grandstar:
It is more likely Buhari does a back-flip than for Ezekwelisi to win the coming presidential election

She stands no chance at all

rather unfortunately. She seems like a better choice than both atiku and bubu

grandstar:
Things you naturally gravitate to in a free trade environmental or where foriegn direct investors are very keen on investing on. They generally target areas you have comparative advantage in.

For instance, the British tried to encourage farmers here to produce rice but they preferred cocoa and other cash crops.

Under free trade, it will be economically suicidal to produce rice. Without the high import duties on it which makes it less affordable to the poor who consider it a staple (the primary cause of hunger is not a lack of food but a lack of money) no one in his right mind would grow it. The country has zero comparative advantage in it.

In some areas, foriegn investors know areas have comparative advantage in as they have both the know-how and capital to exploit it.

A good example are cars.

When many Central European countries like Slovakia and Romania joined the EU, many Western European countries set up manufacturing plants there to exploit their much cheaper labour.

Manufacturers EU countries focus on areas they have comparative advantage because they are in a common market. Germany won't start producing t-shirts and asking for high import duties to protect their local manufacturers against competition from fellow EU competitors. It won't simply be given

Is this because of terrible electricity ?

grandstar:
hargbolahan0 omohayek

Buy made in Nigeria mantra is killing the country.

Countries like individuals do well when they focus energy on the things they do well and not on the things they suck at

China industrialization was anchored export and that's the way to go. That's the way Japan South Korea Taiwan followed. They had an export or perish philosophy

Protectionism encourages companies to be noncompetitive and that is one reason the country's manufacturers are terrified of imports even from fellow ECOWAS countries.

Most importantly there are a million and one goods the country can produce competitively and therefore should stop pouring money into the things that the country lacks [b]comparative advantag[/b]e in.

Also speaking on cars, Pat Utomi who worked for a car assembly plant in the 1980's said it will be best that the country focuses on niches in the car industry rather than the whole

For instance, imagine that Nigeria accounted for 10% of global tyre production or 10% of brake pad production That will be far more beneficial rather than producing cars where the captive market is too small to manufacture cars competitively

How does a country know where their comparative Advantage lies ?

I wish buhari was contesting for u s president , lol

theoldpretender:
Last comment for now

I think Nigerians don't want to pay higher for fuel....and yes..a high fuel price does have knock on effects.

But subsidizing fuel too has knock on effects...NNPC is importing fuel at a loss, marketers sell fuel at artificially lowprices, and people are not rushing to build new refineries because no one wants to sell fuel at low prices.And then there is the corruption.

In 2010...GE wanted to build 3 new refineries. Signed an MOU. The refineries have not been built because under subsidy they won't have made a profit.

I understand why people don't want subsidy gone. And Lord knows it would chop my money well well.But...it is time we either cut subsidy...or we keep it, while we take loans to fund other sectors of the economy till oil goes above $140. (In our dreams).

But the question is whether the govt would even fund the other sectors , sadly

grandstar:
Unfortunately for you, the elephant in the room isn't Atiku's corrupt past but the incumbent perceived incompetence.

Economic growth rate under his watch has been barely 1% yearly which isn't enough to create enough jobs for entering the labour force yearly.. The country needs to grow by 7% to achieve that.

From 1999 to 2013, the economy grew by 6.7% yearly despite high levels of corruption. Atiku said he appointed 7 PHD holders, that he preferred ploying people smarter than him.

Buhari's introduction of senseless econimic policies upon assumption of office was his Achilles heel. Even Lamido Sanusi was strident in condemning these policies and even advised his ministers to speak truth to power.

Buhari's has no one but himself to blames. People aren't ready for another 4 years of lamentable growth (Even the Abacha years were better). The man doesn't listen to anyone just as Amaechi said.

PMB blew his massive Goodwill away

But still , you have to agree that atiku is also a terrible option. I see no reason why oby ezekwelisi shouldn't rule.