By Isaac ASABOR
Without resorting to being exaggerative, the year 2022 has largely been a year of uncertainty as not a few Nigerians have continued to grapple with a plethora of difficulties that cut across insecurity, underemployment, inadequate social infrastructures as well as food insecurity, and volatility of electricity generation and distribution.
Notwithstanding the debilities that are inherent in the foregoing, there were also some positive developments that we should be grateful for, and thank God for His divine provisions. One of the positive developments is the emergence of Mr. Peter Obi, Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party (LP), particularly as he is always at home with the dynamics of Nigeria’s economy, and its attendant indices and how they impact the well-being of the people.
Are you in doubt of Obi’s profundity of macroeconomics, particularly as it pertains to Nigeria? Better check him out at any political forum soon. Fact-checkers mischievously paid by his traducers have been working hard to disprove him in most of the economic facts mentioned by him, in most cases, extemporarily mentioned from the soap box, but have woefully been failing to disprove his economic facts that are usually buttressed in incontrovertible indices.
Therefore, it is against the foregoing backdrop that one can proudly beat his chest, and boast that Obi is the only presidential candidate that understands the nitty-gritty of the World Bank’s Report on Nigeria’s economy through its Nigeria Development Update released on December 15, 2022. In the report, or rather the update, the bank said, “Nigeria’s economy needs to grow faster to reduce poverty. Despite favorable global oil prices, “business as usual” economic management is not delivering desired outcomes, and, even if a crisis is avoided in the near-term, long-standing policy and institutional challenges are persisting and severely constraining the economy. This hinders the prospects of the vast majority of the country’s people, at least 80 million of whom live in extreme poverty. Whether to continue down this path or to instead chart a new course and rise to its tremendous potential, is Nigeria’s choice.”
The Bank observes that Nigeria’s economic growth has slowed on the back of declining oil output and moderating non-oil activity. Real gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 3.1 percent year-on-year (y-o-y) in the first three quarters of 2022, a little more than the annual population growth of 2.6 percent. Nigeria’s growth performance, and its fiscal and external buffers, have decoupled from high oil prices, and macroeconomic vulnerabilities have increased. The bank advised that it is urgent to address the key drivers of this decoupling and make reforms to strengthen Nigeria’s macro-fiscal framework, and noted that the Strategic Revenue Growth Initiative (SRGI) of the federal government is a welcome first step, reversing the previously declining trend in non-oil revenues as a share of GDP, saying that this initial success needs to be sustained and built upon.
As advice specifically aimed at managers of the Nigerian economy, who are invariably our political leaders that are majorly affiliated to the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, Shubham Chaudhuri, said “Nigeria has a choice to implement critical macroeconomic and structural reforms that can reduce crisis vulnerabilities and increase growth. Doing so will lift per-capita incomes, sustainably reduce poverty and deliver better life outcomes for many Nigerians, and added that “Urgent business-unusual choices are needed to avoid a scenario in which up to 80 million working-age Nigerians do not have a full-time job by 2030 and up to 23 million more Nigerians could be living in extreme poverty.”
The global bank explained in the Report that “Inflation has surged to 21.1 percent y-o-y in October 2022, pushing as many as five million more Nigerians into poverty since the start of 2022. Fiscal pressures have intensified, exacerbated by the soaring cost of the petrol subsidy which will likely exceed five trillion Naira this year. Despite higher oil export revenues, official reserves have fallen, and the currency market is severely distorted, undermining the business environment and investment. The weaknesses in the macroeconomic policy framework are suppressing growth and making Nigeria more vulnerable to shocks.”
Unarguably pointing the way out from the Catch-22 situation that bad leadership has thrown the country into, the bank in the Report presents the reform choices Nigeria can make in three key areas: First is the need for the restoration of macroeconomic stability through measures to reduce the domestic and external imbalances, and explained that this will require a coordinated mix of the exchange rate, trade, monetary, and fiscal policies, notably including adopting a single, market-responsive exchange rate, eliminating the petrol subsidy, and increasing oil and non-oil revenues; the Second approach is the need to boost private sector development and competitiveness by eliminating structural constraints that hinder productivity; and the third is the need to expand social protection to protect the poor and most vulnerable.
Unfortunately, the solutions proffered by the global apex bank may pragmatically not be implemented as there are no trusted leaders to implement them. The reason for the foregoing cannot be farfetched as Nigerians have since over 7 years down the line been witnessing leaders affiliated with the ruling party (APC), unarguably coming across as being ragged, opportunists, ill-informed, wild, and politically dishonest.
Against the foregoing backdrop, it is germane to opine in this context that given the possibility that the uncertainties that prevailed in 2022 may be carried over into 2023 as the prevailing geopolitical cracks are still widening, economic conditions still been depressed; inflationary pressures have still been persistent, and food insecurity and power failures still lingering, there is no denying the fact that there is need for a Nigerian president that has what it takes to leverage opportunities that would prevail in 2023 to engender better governance, and that president, in my opinion, is Mr Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party.
