Economic Recession: Dr (Mrs) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Needs No Rethink

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Dear Dr Doyin Okupe,
If the statement credited to you and published in different newspapers actually emanated from you then you should be the one that needs a rethink and not our own Dr (Mrs) Ngozi Okonjo Iweala. In case you do not really know her well apart from serving in the same Jonathan's government with her then you may benefit from the first paragraph of her biography from the most popular global encyclopaedia (Wikipedia),which describes her as thus:

Dr (Mrs) Okonjo-Iweala is a Nigerian and a highly respected and influential global leader, economist, policy maker and thinker on Finance and Economic Development. She has been listed 5 years consecutively as one of the 100 Most Powerful Women in the World by Forbes Magazine and in 2013 was listed as one of the Most Influential People in the World by TIME Magazine. In 2015, she was also listed as one of the 50 Greatest World Leaders by Fortune.

Now that you know her better let me go on to offer my advice to you. First, Mrs Okonjo never politicised her observations about the causes of the economic recession we are currently witnessing. She has never been a politician; she can be better described as a technocrat. As the then coordinating minister of the economy, she handed over the Africa’s largest economy to this current administration but today we are no longer talking about our position in the African continent rather we are talking about economic recession.

How long does it take a bulldozer to destroy a building? Compare the time it takes to destroy a building and the time it will take to set it up again, you will find out that destruction is faster and easier. In less than 18 months of this administration we are now talking about economic recession and not Africa’s largest economy. What a shame!

I remember vividly at the twilight of Jonathan’s administration, when she offered to offer a piece of advice to the next incoming minister of Finance, she was shouted down and called a failure. The same people threatened to petition a foreign university that was about conferring a doctorate degree to her. They told us that Jonathan’s government with all her technocrats was clueless and inept and that they needed a change.

An Igbo adage says that a child carried at the back does not know how far a journey is. Mrs Okonjo Iweala as a technocrat virtually carried us at her back and we were buying fuel at N97 per litre and a bag of rise was less than N10, 000 but when the changers came on board, we now feel the impact of the journey more than those carrying us at their backs.

We are labelled as being corrupt by our own people. Thus, the immediate past British Prime Minister had the effrontery to describe us as being “fantastically corrupt.” After those unguarded statements, do you still want foreign investors to naively come and invest in our country? If you were a foreign investor would you invest in atmospheres where there are unguarded statements describing the citizens as being corrupt? That is what Prof Pat Utomi called ‘Applying Intelligent Leadership’ as we are going to see below.

In case you are not aware, Mrs Okonjo is not the only technocrat who has blamed the current administration concerning the current economic recession, in fact Prof Pat Utomi while addressing the gathering of Catholic Men Organisation (CMO) recently at Festac town, Lagos stated that our current administration really caused the current economy recession for failing to take three major actions which are not applying intelligent leadership, not borrowing against its assets and not devaluing on time. He summarised the benefits if the government had taken these three important actions as thus:

That would have made people to start transacting normally. But they said how can we devalue? We will not devalue , people who have money and who wanted to bring in money felt that these people are about to make decision that might jeopardise our money tomorrow. So they didn’t bring it. Even oil companies were not bringing back their receipts and Nigerians who were exporting were not bringing back, so there was a major crisis. Instead of the thing devaluing by 6 percent, it went down to what we are seeing. So it is self-inflicted and quality of leadership.

Will you also call for Prof Pat Utomi to also have a rethink? The truth needs to be told, this current administration thought the act of governance at the national level was ‘bread and butter’ but on getting there it became clearer to them why Jonathan developed more grey hairs in Aso Rock. It is a question of time Nigerians will choose between Jonathan’s administration and the current administration, which one is clueless. Tell me a government in the world which will intend abruptly bringing up economic policies that will discourage importation of goods without setting up import substituting companies; knowing very well that greater majority of things used in the country are imported?

What we have today is the government of trial and error while the masses are bearing the brunt of their economic mistakes. Recently, they just launched ‘CHANGE BEGINS WITH YOU’, I thank God that you recognised in your response to Dr (Mrs) Okonjo that such mantra should have been a content of Mr President’s speech on 29/05/15,that is another trial and error, we may soon have another mantra such as ‘THE CHANGE BEGINS WITH OUR UNBORN CHILDREN’. Very soon, Nigerians will voluntarily pack out of their homes and take refuge in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps not because of Boko Haram, war, Niger Delta militants or any natural disaster but because they can no longer feed themselves and cater for the three basic needs of man (food, shelter, clothing).

If a worker is paid N18,000 minimum wage and he goes to borrow N7000 to complete it N25,000 to buy one bag of rice, how will he solve other financial problems? If that worker keeps on borrowing every month to foot the bills of his cost of living, now tell me why such worker will not be tempted to find alternative means of supplementing his monthly salaries? Will you be surprised if what happened in Samaria (a district of ancient Israel) during the time of Elisha(2nd Kings 6:24-27) begins to happen in Nigeria tomorrow where because of famine and harsh economic situations, their women were eating their children in order not to starve?

Tell me the type of Economy you want in a country where the citizens are at the mercy of the members of the executive. The safest heaven for any politician now is to defect to APC and once you are in another party and oppose the government, the next day, the anti-graft agencies or law enforcement agents will arrest you, and once they arrest you, you will be forced to say goodbye to your family since court orders for your release will not be honoured. Nnamdi Kanu and Sambo Dasuki will tell you more on this. To worsen the matter, there are handfuls of lawyers who are ready to defend all actions of the government. At least in this government we once had two governors in one state and that happened in my own Abia state.

The INEC lawyers came out to defend their actions. It is in this administration that we learnt that an application for Stay of Execution or an Appeal to a higher court will not prevent the execution of the judgement of the lower court. If not the politics the incumbent governor of Abia state played he must have been kicked out of office even when his appeal and stay of execution were pending before courts of competent jurisdictions.

How many sitting governors who opposed Jonathan’s government did Jonathan ,through the anti-graft agencies, freeze their accounts but today lawyers have come out to tell us that the immunity conferred on a sitting governor and his property in s308 of our constitution ( as amended) is not absolute.

Governor Fayose of Ekiti state will tell you more on this. Do you think any sensible foreign investor will come and invest under such draconian atmosphere? What if the government decides to close or take over the business tomorrow, do you think any court injunction will prevent the government? My dear, foreign investors think before they act.

In the second part of this piece, I will critically analyze other policies and actions of the current administration that have kept crippling the economy. Meanwhile, I will not end this piece without advising you that if you want to defect to APC just like other politicians have been doing ,kindly do that but do not politicise a professional statement made by a globally recognised financial and economic technocrat.

Dr Paul John
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Articles by Paul John