Nigeria’s GDP ‘Growth’ Is Anaemic; It’s Nothing To Celebrate!

 By Olu Fasan

Trust Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s self-assured yet bumbling president. He will claw at any piece of seemingly good news. Recently, when the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, reported that Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product, GDP, grew to 3.19 per cent in the second quarter of this year, from 2.51 per cent at the same period last year, Tinubu was overly exultant.

*Tinubu

His newspaper, The Nation, screamed on its front page: “Tinubu hails GDP surge, assures of stronger economic performance.” Surely, describing the anaemic and shallow GDP growth rate as a “surge” shows how Tinubu grasps at straws, denying reality. Interestingly, while Tinubu gloated about the GDP figure, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s two-time Finance Minister and current Director-General of the World Trade Organisation, WTO, lamented Nigeria’s perennially sluggish GDP growth rate at this year’s annual conference of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA. So, who is right?

New African Magazine Unveils 100 Most Influential Africans Of 2023

 

New African magazine released today its annual listing of the 100 Most Influential Africans of 2023. The list celebrates the achievements and contributions of Africans from various fields and sectors, who have made a positive impact on the continent and the world. The list features a diverse and inspiring group of men and women, who have demonstrated excellence, innovation, leadership, resilience, and vision in their respective domains. They include politicians, entrepreneurs, industrialists, environmentalists, creatives, scientists, educators, sports personalities, and more.

South-East Beyond 2023: Time For A Reset

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

The title of this article, I must confess, is not original to me. It is the theme of the South-East Summit on Economy and Security which is scheduled to hold in Owerri, Imo State, next week. There couldn’t have been a better time or even a better theme for the Summit. Ndigbo are at a socio-economic and political crossroads in Nigeria and crucial decisions with far-reaching consequences have become inevitable. 

*Iwuanyanwu 

The idea of the Summit, therefore, is to galvanise Ndigbo, a people hitherto proud of their heritage, but who seem to have lost their sagacity in the face of debilitating national conspiracy, to look inwards to harness their inner strengths and abundant resources in order to reshape their collective destiny. A new trajectory has become imperative. 

2023 General Elections: The Tragic Misjudgements Of Soludo, el-Rufai

 By Olu Fasan

Someday, chroniclers of history will tell the stories of the 2023 general elections, the worst in Nigeria’s recent history. They will narrate the noble and ignoble roles played, respectively, by heroes and villains of the elections. Among the political class, villains abound. But two interest me here: Professor Charles Soludo, current governor of Anambra State, and Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, outgoing governor of Kaduna State. Neither covered himself in glory!

*el-Rufai and Soludo 

You might ask: why single out Soludo and el-Rufai? Well, few political office holders in Nigeria today entered politics with the technocratic pedigree of Soludo and el-Rufai: the former was a smart presidential economic adviser who became a reformist governor of the Central Bank; the latter, a brilliant director of the Bureau of Public Enterprises who became a transformative Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. Both are first-class technocrats and administrators.

Beware Of 'Emilokan' And Promise Of Continuity

 By Dele Sobowale

“Standing on the foundation emplaced by the current [Buhari] administration, we shall build a Nigeria…” – Renewed Hope 2023: Action Plan For A Better Nigeria, p 3.

Buhari and Tinubu

Whenever there is a document promising to make Nigeria a better place, I am ready to get it; read it; analyse it and publish my findings. I now have a copy of what might be regarded as the Tinubu/Shettima/APC Manifesto for the 2023 Presidential Election. The full analysis is almost finished; but, it is too long for this column. So, the reader should not expect the details here. I might add in passing that I also intend to obtain; read and analyse every manifesto published – providing the owners arrange for me to get them. “Men make history; but, not just as they please” – Karl Marx, 1818-1883.

That said; we now turn to the matter on hand. Let me start my stating that Asiwaju Tinubu has my sympathies. Those of us who were intimately involved in the struggle for the actualisation of the late Chief MKO Abiola’s mandate from 1993 till 1998, when the man died, can never forget his contributions. But, for his sagacity and street wisdom, when former President Olusegun Obasanjo deceived the leaders of Afenifere, and the Alliance for Democracy, AD, decided not to field a presidential candidate in 2003, the entire South-West would have been captured by the PDP.

Nigeria: Script For A Final Looting Spree

 By Ochereome Nnanna

The Good Book says “by their fruits ye shall know them”. When you dress a person in borrowed robes just to show off, William Shakespeare (Macbeth Act 5, Scene 2) says it will be “(hanging) loose about him like a giant’s robe upon a dwarfish thief”. Before 2003, the Finance portfolio of the Nigerian economy had always been handled by men. After his frivolous first term, former President Olusegun Obasanjo decided to get serious in his second. Nigeria had a debt overhang of $32bn owed to the Paris Club alone.

*Buhari 

Obasanjo saw that his global gallivanting and begging for debt forgiveness was not cutting ice. He needed to do more than merely advertise his “beautiful” mug on the streets of Western capitals.

Unemployment, Corruption And Nigeria’s Youth Dilemma

By Matthew Ozah

Their story is very pathetic and heart-breaking: You cannot help but feel sorry for Nigeria’s youth. At every step the Nigerian youth wonders where he or she is going and why. They worry about unemployment and cost of living as the creeping inflation following the recent economic recession which has raised prices of commodities. In the face of all these challenges, youths across the country are determined as they struggle to make themselves relevant by acquiring university education.

However, being a graduate does not save one from enlisting in the army of unemployed people. The strong expectation and desire to be gainfully employed saw the youth entangled with the All Progressives Congress (APC) change trap. The sound of ‘change’ that engulfed the entire nation then, was like the midnight drumming sound Alex Harley described in his book: Roots, which led some slaves in America during the era of slavery to escape to freedom. Indeed, Nigeria’s youths were captivated and entangled with the APC’s change bait to escape joblessness and live a good life. As we all know, the APC promised to create millions of job and pay unemployed graduates a stipend of five thousand naira monthly among other mouth watering promises which are still in wait three years on.

Kofi Annan @ 80: Memories and Reflections

By Professor Kingsley Moghalu

To live is to choose. But to choose well, you must know who you are and what you stand for, where you want to go and why you want to go there ­– Kofi A. Annan

The quotation above reflects my worldview. But these are not my words. They belong to someone much older and wiser, and whose mentorship and friendship has taught me many lessons in life. I salute Kofi Annan of Ghana, the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations and my boss of many years, Nobel Laureate and renowned global elder statesman as he turns 80 on April 8, 2018. 

*Kofi Annan

On a recent visit to Mr. Annan at his Foundation’s offices in Geneva, Switzerland, I was pleasantly surprised to see him just as spritely, well-kept and un-aged as I had last seen him several years ago. In 2009 I had met him at his office in Geneva to let him know I had decided to resign from my UN system career and was going into the private sector as the founder of a global strategy and risk management consulting firm. As someone who always had the courage to launch out in new, versatile directions during his 35-year UN career before he became Secretary-General, he was very encouraging of my decision to seek new horizons. Later that year, he telephoned to congratulate me on my appointment as Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. Incidentally, the unplanned journey to that appointment began at a World Economic Forum dinner in Cape Town, South Africa at which Annan, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi and I had been among the guest attendees. 

One Year After: Where Is the Nigerian Economy Heading?

By Uzoma Ngozi

Nigeria’s overdependence on oil is one reality that President Buhari’s government has to grapple with if it will survive the crash in the global oil prices. The good news is that every challenge posed to this administration is a prospect for them to make a change, just as they promised during the presidential campaign.

However, it seems that this government has no clue on how to fix the economy. The incompetence of Buhari’s economic team is instantly apparent as the economic system is on the verge of collapsing; inflation is on the rise, purchasing power is very low, unemployment is high, the country is in gross darkness and it seems like Nigerians have already lost hope in this government.

The best word to depict an economic system led by Buhari and his team without a pattern is to refer to it as “Buharinomy.” To borrow the words of Prof. Utomi, Buhari is indeed operating an “archaic and medieval kind of economic system.”

Despite the pathetic situation of the economy, his economic team has been mum about the present state of affairs. And instead of the president to accept the responsibility of giving direction to the economy, he keeps blaming the immediate past administration for the present economic woes. He forgets the word of the German author Eckhart Tolle that says, “Discontent, blaming, complaining, self-pity cannot serve as a foundation for a good future, no matter how much effort you take.”

There is no basis to compare the Buharinomy and the economy of the past administration because the economic policies of the immediate past administration were direct and had a human face to it.

One technocrat that made a difference in the past administration was the former Minister of Finance and coordinating minister of the economy who helped in charting a cause for the economy. Although the administration had its own challenges, she put policies in place that helped cushion the hardship known to the ordinary man in the country.

Despair, Nigerian Style

By Paul Onomuakpokpo  

Whether or not our current leaders consider it a cruel fate that threw them up in these times that contrast with the heady days of oil boom, they must not keep on ruing their arrival on the political scene only when the party is over. For, great leaders, with redoubtable transformational savvy, have often emerged in the times of depressing national crises like war and economic collapse. The times of crises are not when leaders who have been weaned on a diet of ease and are imbued with the delusive notion that public office is a voyage into uncharted territories of splurging should remain in the cocoon of comfort, untouched by the afflictions of their people. Thus before our leaders is placed the uncommon opportunity of demonstrating their capability for navigating the nation through the treacherous trajectory of a myriad of emergencies.

But even if they were willing, our leaders cannot make a headway until they really appreciate the character of the tragedy that has befallen the citizens. In our nation’s case, it may only be in the period of the civil war that the people suffered more than they are doing now. Every other crisis with its attendant immiseration may pale into insignificance before the one the citizens are currently confronted with. The economic crisis has thrown many  people out of jobs and they can no longer  pay their rents. But just recently in Lagos, for instance, such people could still have found shelter if they were thrown out by their landlords or landladies.  Those whose pallid economic condition  rendered them homeless would have had the bridges  to save them from the elements. But urban development in contemporary times has made these bridges inaccessible to them. And even if they were still available, ritual killers  and rapists would have made them danger zones for the homeless to shelter under. And in the past, the hungry citizens ate from dustbins. But such culinary havens are fast disappearing.

Indeed, signposting their attainment of apotheosis, the dustbins and dumping grounds have increasingly become the dining tables of the poor . The scramble cannot go unnoticed as those who ought to throw the remnants of their food in those dustbins do not even have what to eat.  These are workers whose companies have collapsed because of their inability to procure the foreign exchange they needed for their operations. Others are workers who, though are engaged in their jobs, are being owed for months by their private or public employers. These hobbled employees are even looking for who to borrow from. Some of them who never went to religious places of worship like churches before now frequent there with the hope that help could come from there. But from who do they beg or borrow when all the workers are suffering the same fate? Those that may be in a position to be borrowed or begged from should be the members of the political class who are invulnerable to the crushing  economic crisis . Even the little the salary-starved worker has cannot buy so much since the prices of goods have tripled due to the widening disparity between the naira and the dollar.

Remove Subsidies And Redirect Cash Into Needful Investments

"It Makes More Sense To Remove Subsidies And Redirect Cash Into Investments That Go Directly To Those Who Need It Most"

By Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

Globally, government support for fossil-fuel subsidies will amount to almost $650bn this year. The cost of these subsidies far outweighs the benefits and burdens the middle classes. Reforming the system can make energy infrastructure more efficient, shore up public finances and allow more targeted spending on public services.

The idea is not a new one. In 2009, the G20 countries and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum committed themselves to cutting inefficient subsidies but progress has been limited. But in the context of the decline in oil prices, which benefits consumers, we have a golden opportunity to deliver reform.

About 30 countries, including my own, Nigeria, have already made efforts to phase out fossil-fuel subsidies. In spite of the difficulties, it is well worth the effort.

In 2012 in Nigeria we reformed petrol subsidies. Conscious that the public might be concerned, we ran an information campaign to explain how the savings would be used to help everyone. Political pressure, however, led to the policy being introduced earlier than planned and, as a result, the changes came as a shock to many. This led to protests and the reform had to be partially rolled back.

Despite this, we were right to act. Even phasing out half of the subsidies was a substantial achievement. Some $13bn worth of petrol subsidies, including many fraudulent claims, had burdened the national budget, and we were able to redirect some of those funds. Within a year, our programme to reinvest the savings meant we could finish the renovation of a north-south national railway, as well as introduce improved maternal and childcare services in 500 primary healthcare centres.

Using lessons learnt from Nigeria and other countries we can put together a set of best practices to follow. These include co-coordinated communication, implementation and redistribution efforts. Reform should also create a broad sense of political ownership, especially in fiscally decentralised countries.

One of the most common concerns about removing subsidies is that it will hurt the poor. But in reality the subsidies benefit high-income populations and industry much more than low-income households.

The International Monetary Fund has estimated that more than 40 per cent of fuel price subsidies in developing countries accrue to the richest 20 per cent of households, while 7 per cent of the benefits go to the poorest 20 per cent.

It makes more sense to remove subsidies and redirect cash into investments that go directly to those who need it most. That was the aim of Nigeria’s programme and it is being tried elsewhere. In Germany and Poland, for example, coal subsidy reforms were supported by cash assistance for workers affected by mine closures.

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RELATED POST 

The Return of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

World Bank Selection A ‘Hypocrisy Test’, Says Okonjo-Iweala

... As Financial Times Newspaper Endorses Her... 

Nigeria's Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has said that the process through which a new World Bank president is selected to succeed Mr. Robert Zoellick whose tenure ends in July would serve to determine the "level of hypocrisy" of the rich nations.  

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
 “I would really hold the Bretton Woods shareholders to their word, that they want to change the way business is being done and want a merit-based, open and transparent process for the presidency. I just want to see whether people just say things with their mouth that they don’t mean and what’s the level of hypocrisy. So we want to test that,” Okonjo-Iweala told Financial Times (London) in a recent interview. 
Since the World Bank was established, America has always produced its president. And it is always taken for granted that the American nominee will always emerge the winner due to her superior voting power. Already, President Barack Obama has nominated an American health expert and Dartmouth professor, Jim Yong Kim, for the top job. Other contenders are Okonjo-Iweala herself who is backed by the African Union (AU) and the former Colombian Finance Minister, Jose Antonio Ocampo. 

US President Barack Obama, US Nominee For World Bank Presidency, Jim Yong Kim, US Secretary Of State, Hillary Clinton, During The Announcement Of The US Nominee In The Rose Garden At The White House On  Friday, March 23, 2012

Okonjo-Iweala, a former World Bank managing director, thinks that since the bank is focusing on development, the weak economies which are the targets of such developmental efforts ought to be allowed stronger voice in the running of the bank. She called for a “contestable process” in the selection of the bank’s leadership. 

“Many developing countries are very desirous to see this. They may not necessarily be saying they support Okonjo-Iweala, but they will be saying we support a contestable process,” she said.  

Okonjo-Iweala is also Nigeria's Coordinating Minister of the Economy. A decision to remove the subsidy on fuel in Nigeria recently led to serious civil crises which paralyzed activities in the country for several days. Most people thought she was the architect of the policy.  But most African leaders believe she is the best person for the World Bank job. And she thinks so herself.  

Time To Say Goodbye: Robert Zoelick: His Tenure

As World Bank President Ends June 30

"I’m not a typical bureaucrat, and not a typical World Banker either. I’ve come in and out. Someone like me can hit the ground running. I don’t have a steep learning curve,” she told Financial Times  

“I think that the World Bank matters so much to many of the world’s poor, it matters so much to emerging market countries, so I think this time they need to get it right. I can’t do better than demand they stick to their words. If they fail then it will be for the world to judge them,” she said.  

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Being Greeted By Her Greatest

Supporter, President Goodluck Jonathan

Meanwhile, the Financial Times has endorsed her for the job. In an editorial on Tuesday, March 27, 2012, the paper said that the new president of the World Bank “should have a command of macroeconomics, the respect of leaders of both the funding and the funded countries, and the management skills to implement his or her vision. These requirements make Ms Okonjo-Iweala the best person for the role… Having an African woman at the helm of the world’s leading development institution would send a strong signal both to developing and developed countries. … In this less than ideal world, Mr. Kim’s appointment seems inevitable. But if the Bank’s shareholders wanted the best president, they would opt for Ms Okonjo-Iweala.”

Will Obasanjo Explode President Yar’Adua’s Anti-Graft Balloon?

(First published April 2, 2008)

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye  
If you were carrying out an employment exercise in your company, and one of the job seekers  showed up with a letter of  recommendation duly written and signed by Mr. Nuhu Ribadu, the former Chair of the Economic And Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), would that impress you? 

 Well, the strength and credibility of any   recommendation should flow from the performance of the person earlier recommended by the same person. For instance, Mr. Ribadu had told the nation that he had deployed the full force of his prodigious intellect, experience and thoroughness to carefully examine the eight-year nightmare prosecuted by Gen Olusegun Obasanjo but could not detect the slightest hint of corruption in all that the man did while in office!  

But, for the past few weeks now, Nigerians have witnessed with utter disbelief and deep pain horrifying details of the worst form of heartless plunder this nation had ever witnessed, perpetrated with utmost impunity and even fanfare, under the direct supervision of the same man Nuhu Ribadu had told us was above board.  

About $16 billion was callously squandered under the pretext of fixing the nation’s problematic power sector, plunging the country and   its hapless citizens deeper into thicker and more suffocating darkness.  As sordid revelations ooze from the House of Representatives Probe into the management of the power sector under the Obasanjo regime, where, for instance, it was revealed that a contract worth about N88 billion was verbally awarded, Nigerians are shocked that human beings with hearts and blood running in their veins are capable of such prehistoric greed and cruelty.

While Nigerians groaned under the punishing effect of the protracted energy crises in the country, the very resources meant for the alleviation of their harrowing pain was being primitively plundered.  

 In a decent country, Mr. Liyel Imoke would have since resigned as Governor of Cross River State with shame and haste, while awaiting his well-earned trail alongside his big uncle, Obasanjo. But, this is Nigeria, where something called Immunity Clause exists to provide very formidable protection for unrepentant enemies of the people from the just consequences of their hideous actions in office. 

                                                                                                                                Late President Yar’Adua 

Only last week, former Finance Minster, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, told the House Committee probing the mindless brigandage that flourished in the power sector that it was Mr. Imoke and Obasanjo  that concocted the “Due Process Waiver” that enabled them bypass all statutory roadblocks to prosecute their unparalleled clean out of the public treasury to build phantom power plants.  

In 1999 when Obasanjo became president, total power generation within the national grid stood at 2,400 Mega Watts. But by the time he was leaving office in 2007 (and till date), the whole thing had come down to 2,100 MW, despite the billions of dollars said to have been poured into the obviously phantom efforts to give Nigerians stable power supply.  

To sensible Nigerians, that is hardly surprising. Among the companies awarded juicy contracts, and paid jumbo mobilisation fees, which in some cases were as high as 70 percent of the whole contract value, thirty-three (which got N6.2 billion contracts) were not registered at the Corporate Affairs Commission, which means that they were non-existent companies! Even when identifiable companies got contracts and were fully mobilized, several of them vanished into thin air or managed to show some form of presence at the project site. 

 The only believable reason those in charge of the whole obscene profligacy had refused to bother themselves with whether those contracts were executed or not may be that, perhaps, those “companies” were either theirs or belonged to their cronies and agents.

                                                                         
                                                                                 Former EFCC Boss, Nuhu Ribadu            
          
According to Daily Independent editorial of March 27, 2008, “Energo Limited, a company in which a former military head of state is Chairman, [was paid] over N13 billion … without any job done to date … Obasanjo, according to disclosures by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), even commissioned an empty site in Odukpani, Cross River State, as a power station last year.  Top managers of PHCN [also awarded] contracts worth US$142 million to non-existent firms. PHCN was shown to have paid out various sums – N2.1 billion, 2.1million Euros and 1.1billion Yen — for hydropower projects whose existence is unknown to chief executives of the stations.”

According to the Minster for Energy (Power), Mrs. Fatimah Ibrahim, $13.3 billion was squandered in the power sector, under very close, direct supervision of Imoke and Obasanjo with nothing on ground to show for the huge expenditure.

Certainly, this is enough to put these fellows behind bars for the rest of their lives, if President Umar Musa Yar’Adua is serious about all the noise he makes about rule of law and due process.  Well, how Yar’Adua responds to this challenge will help define the image of his administration in the days ahead.

Last week, former Health Minister, Prof Adenike Grange, was sacked or forced to resign, or both, for refusing to heed the Presidential directive to return to the treasury the unspent fund from the allocation to her ministry. The amount involved is N300 million naira, which the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) accused her, her deputy, Gabriel Aduku, and 14 senior civil servants of the ministry of attempting to embezzle.    

Also starring in the slimy scandal is Obasanjo’s first daughter, Dr. Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, who is the Chairman, Senate Committee on Health.  It may appear uncharitable to view Prof Grange’s sack or resignation, given its timing, as aimed at diverting significant attention from the earth-shaking revelations rolling out from the Public Hearing on the Power Sector which has provoked widespread demand for the immediate arrest and trial of Obasanjo and all those who had joined hands with him to enact the unprecedented corruption. But then, the whole thing reeks of just that! 

                                                            
                                                                          Former President Obasanjo

On Monday (March 31, 2008), General Jeremiah Useni, the unrepentant alter ego of the late ruthless dictator, Gen Sani Abacha, was quoted as saying that the boundless brigandage that flourished in the power sector has made whatever Abacha was accused of looting to appear like “a child’s play.” He even expressed doubt that the once famous Abacha Loot recovered from several sources were deployed to execute any venture that would benefit the Nigerian people, because, according to him, there was “no bill [that] went to the National Assembly to approve its expenditure.” In other words, Abacha’s may have been looted by those who recovered it!  

Also, on the same Monday, the papers reported that Prof Grange may be charged to court this week. Now, if we consider that what Grange and Co were accused of “attempting to embezzle” was mere “change” when compared with the $16 or $13 billion that was siphoned off thought phantom power projects, we will then begin to ask ourselves whether, under Yar’Adua, different rules apply to different people? 

 Now, some ex-Governors are, justifiably, being dragged about by the EFCC for allegedly stealing N1 billion or N2 billion or even less. If these ex-Governors or Mrs. Grange and Co are found guilty, they should be hastened off to jail, to isolate them from the assembly decent beings, because they have proved themselves to be unrepentant enemies of Nigeria.

But should the alleged bigger thieves be spared? 

 Nigerians and the rest of world are watching to see what President Yar’Adua would do with the fellows who awarded N88 billion contract by mere word of mouth. They would want to know what would be done to the man who gave out juicy contracts to 33 non-existent companies, and commissioned empty lands as power plants, to cover up the squandered fund.

Yes, they would want to know whether the fellow who had bled his country pale to become one of the richest billionaires in Africa is, in the thinking of Yar’Adua, above the laws of the land, and deserves to be celebrated, while the poor clerk somewhere who was driven by hunger to mismanage N5, 000 is sent to jail.  

It must be clear to Yar’Adua that injustice and double standards, especially of this magnitude, can only create fertile grounds for defiance, rebellion and anarchy.
Already, a former Governor standing trial for corrupt enrichment is threatening to make the country ungovernable if big thieves are left to move about undisturbed while mere pickpockets are haunted and harassed with extreme zeal.  

Yar’Adua must be wary of allowing seeds of destabilisation germinate in the country just because of his determination not to “embarrass” some fellows whose only contribution to their fatherland is the ruin and stagnation they had brought to it by their conscious unethical acts.  

By the way, where was Saint Ribadu when the nation was being gang-raped with such unparalleled violence? To what extent did the National Assembly under Ken Nnamani and his brother Aminu Bello Masari exercise its oversight functions when this insane plundering was flourishing?

Well, former Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar can gloat today, but would this brazen prodigality have been exposed if Obasanjo had not parted ways with, and handed over to him as he had expected?   Now, we have seen the stench in the power sector, but when will the long-awaited probe of the NNPC commence? 

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scruples2006@yahoo.com
April 2, 2008