The biggest challenge we face is to build a nation. That means, #1, managing ethnic and religious diversity by ensuring equity, mutual respect, and separating church/mosque and state. Once our leadership fails in this task we can’t prosper, because/
the economy will fail, security will deteriorate because we prioritize some above others and so the law cannot take its course, and politics and “governance” become simply about contentions for power in order to privilege some above others, not vision or competence./
This is why, our leadership having largely failed in this regard, Nigeria appears - painfully to many of us who believe in its possibilities as a country to become a nation and prosper - to be disintegrating gradually before our eyes. This is death by a thousand cuts./
So, we as citizens must take the matter into our hands and solve the problem at its root. This failure affects us all across ethnic divides. America is far more diverse than Nigeria, yet it has been built into a successful nation because there is a foundational, shared worldview.
Our task as citizens is to band together in our common interest, which is the NATIONAL interest, to elect a leadership that can heal Nigeria and build a nation with vision and competence. It can be done. But we have to educate our fellow citizens on what it takes/
Who should we elect on the basis of vision, character and capacity? Not: who’ll likely win, so we vote to be part of a bandwagon that will produce nothing that helps us in the end. Not: who’ll give us money to vote, but enters office and focuses on recouping his/her “investment”.
If you agree, join us @ #ToBuildaNationtobuildanation.org , our non-partisan citizens movement for a real democracy in which our votes will count because the vote-count is open, we know why we are voting for who, and we begin the real war against poverty. God bless Nigeria!
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The @nnpclimited v @AlikoDangote saga is a sad tale of how successive governments of Nigeria have failed to create a real economy that generates wealth for its citizens. Our economy works only for a very few who get rich while Nigerians continually get poorer. #Rentseeking
The economic failure of Nigeria's leaders because of loyalties to vested interests and unholy ties between "business" and government is deeply unfortunate. @NigeriaGov is, and has been unable, either to stimulate through effect economic policy a set of strategic oligopolies
across sectors under which smaller businesses and supply chains thrive, making up a successful national economy as in South Korea. Neither has the government, on the other hand, been able to create a truly competitive, level playing field for business in Nigeria so that wealth
In the debates on national wage in Nigeria we miss the fundamental point: there is little or no productivity in the economy. If we had a truly productive economy there is no reason we can’t have the kind of minimum wage of 400 or 500K that Labour wants. But we can’t, because the
level of productivity in the economy cannot support it. Remember, minimum wage is not just about government salaries. There are not more than 2, at most 3 million civil servants in Nigeria. It is even more about what is paid in the private sector, to household staff, etc.
All of this is why, all things considered, including avoiding a minimum wage that multiplies already ravaging inflation (assuming such a wage can even be paid), I recommend a minimum wage of between N75,000 and N100,000.
In fact, speaking about productivity, how productive is
The Naira tanking back down to the 1,400s to $1 demonstrates what some of us have been saying. Seeking a falsely “strong” currency when the fundamentals are out of whack is shadow chasing. The focus should be on the STABILITY of the exchange rate, not a populist exchange rate
and premature declarations of “best performing currency”. Reports that there are now multiple exchange rates to BDCs, Customs, and NAFEX are also worrying. It’s not yet uhuru. Let us stabilize the Naira at whatever is its true market value and then pivot to the real issues:
taking Nigeria to 20-25K megawatts of 24 hour electricity in 2-3 years starting with Lagos, Kano, Onitsha and Nnewi (Aba seems promising with Geometric power) so we can create a truly productive economy. Dealing decisively with oil theft and ramping up oil production to bring in
Our relationships with others sometimes deepen or shrink in strange ways. When I was a Deputy Gov at the CBN, there was this bank MD that wanted my approval for certain things concerning his challenged bank. But he would not follow the guidelines we gave him, instead looking for
shortcuts and expecting me to play along. One day my patience snapped. I terminated our conversation and showed him the door of my office. Long story short, the matter was eventually resolved after the bank met certain regulatory conditions. Today that MD (since retired) is
a good friend. After I completed my tenure in November 2014 and left the apex bank, my deceased father in law was buried in early 2015. The MD sent a personal representative to the funeral with a gift. Note the phrase “after I had completed my tenure and left the apex bank”.
Nigeria’s economic distress is simply part of a 40-year downward trajectory that was broken only briefly by the Obasanjo civilian presidency and to some degree under Yar’Adua/Jonathan (up to mid-2014). Ever since, especially from 2015, we fell under completely incompetent
economic management and have not recovered. The immediate future looks difficult. One wishes one could see what will create fundamental change, but alas! Throwing money that is not created wealth at problems will not solve our problems. It only makes them worse. We need to lay a
real foundation for longer term economic transformation. That 80% of Nigeria’s exports in 2023 was oil tells you we have yet to get serious. “Palliatives” (just google the dictionary definition of the word) will never reverse poverty. Wealth is positively created. You cannot
I have seen in the mainstream media and floating around on social media including Whatsapp, a report purported to be that of the CBN Special Investigator appointed by President Tinubu. I have some comments on this development.
1. The “report” has no signature appended, so we
can’t assume it is the real and official report.
2. Assuming it is in fact the real report, it’s wrong for such a sensitive report to have “leaked” to the public before the President and his government have reviewed and spoken to it. This is because the “report” talks of
“chargeable offenses” and mentions specific individuals it recommends to be prosecuted in addition to Emefiele. This is a media trial and prejudices the rights of these individuals named or referred to. This is NOT how a report into the Central Bank of Nigeria should be handled.