What has changed in the Nigerian economy?

The government needs time. When did they get there? Government cannot do it alone. The government faced a bankrupt economy. Phrases that framed debates when former President Muhammadu Buhari took office, it killed further awareness of economic and political governance. In the end, eight years passed with lamentations about how we lived. With over ten million citizens out of work, until the last minute, the Buhari government promised ten million jobs! Those lies must not be repeated and the public has a responsibility to encourage regular monitoring and evaluation.

I was surprised to see the front page headline Sunday Punch On December 10, 2023, Vice President Kashim Shettima admitted that Nigerians are angry with the lifestyle of government officials. They move around in new vehicles including bulletproof cars, while Nigerians with cars are forced to travel in public buses due to the astronomical cost of fuel, and those who moved by buses are now 'on foot’ due to the cost. Transportation from one place to another.

Common Nigerian lives are daily downgraded or depreciated with the naira’s momentum in the international market. A common citizen would carry the hope that at least tomorrow there will be light at the end of the tunnel, but the way government officials flaunt their wealth while enduring poverty is shameful. Even key actors in government have shown no remorse in complying with our current levels of massive debt and poor living conditions.

Records show former President Barack Obama took over a sluggish U.S. economy and created a record 800,000 jobs a month. The Obama Whitehouse.reaches.gov „Every month the economy continues to record its longest streak of private sector job growth,” it said. He began creating jobs immediately after taking office to bring the economy out of recession. That’s why job creation records from the same source say “… President Obama has worked to improve the lives of all … more than 70 months of job growth, the longest streak on record. Quora.com „What kind of jobs did Obama create? And the answer given was „According to the nonfarm payrolls, 11,501,000 were created in Obama’s two terms.” A president who meant business, bound by his words to lead America back to employment.

Job creation is always the first concern and mission of any new president when he takes over a sluggish economy. Once the environment is ready for new domestic investments and capital formation, the employment of new workers is generated, and before we know it, actions and activities begin to feed on themselves, creating a chain of job creation, employment, income, and consumption. , and revenue to the government in the form of taxes from new businesses and employees.

In fact, taxes as a component of revenue are very low in Nigeria. But higher taxes proposed by the International Monetary Fund will not solve the problem. Instead, it can be solved by widening the tax net or making tax collection more efficient, creating more jobs or employment and income. Since tax, as revenue, is a derivative of income, it is clear that more income for businesses and workers results in more revenue for the government.

If so, how many jobs have been created by the central and state governments in the last six months? Everyone who is in government or related to government is concerned about how to get back the money spent during the election period or the money that saves them more than ordinary citizens even after the term is over. That is why foreign travel has a better schedule in government priority programs than financing local production. Rich countries know how to manage their resources at home and abroad better than poor countries who try to show or hide their inferiority. The number of Nigerian delegates to the just concluded COP28 was 590 while the United States had 159, France 266, Canada 187, United Kingdom 75, Germany 280, South Africa 166 and the European Union 124.

In terms of the total number of citizens who have attended the program worldwide, Nigeria ranks third with China (1,411) after the United Arab Emirates and Brazil! Foreign exchange that should have been earmarked for financing the import of raw materials for domestic industries was devoted to financing a trip to a remote environmental jamboree. Can anyone stop cutting down trees for cooking firewood when kerosene cannot be bought and used? In the last six months, more than 1000 new vehicles have been procured by the executive and legislative arms of the government. How many bought from local producers to continue and expand their business? All kinds of vehicles were imported and created jobs in other countries. If half of those vehicles were produced through loans or grants to local auto companies, employment would be created and incomes would improve and it would be reasonable to ask the government for credit for job creation.

The banking system seems to have returned to the Godwin Emiphile era of the financial crisis. Worse than those times, bank notes are not only smelly but also dirty and tattered. The so-called new Naira notes are not available beyond Emefiele’s circulation, while the old ones in circulation must have been retrieved from the trash bin. As cash is not available at banks’ ATMs, POS operators now collect cash from petrol stations at some cost and also charge special charges to support customers due to circumstances. In Nigeria now you use money to buy money, we are still learning to include it in Nigerian textbooks. The Central Bank of Nigeria has explained that the money is being hoarded. It is a sign that people are losing or losing faith in banking services. When money is no longer circulating in an economy, there is a drop in economic activity and a new round of recession, characterized by job and income losses, a drop in output and eventually the closing of businesses. Socially, it creates all kinds of social insecurity and poverty trap and politically, the government loses face and support from the citizens. The CBN cannot continue to have a clandestine, cashless economy where we have a large informal sector and high levels of financial illiteracy. Please save this economy.

Currently, there is a shortage of petrol at many stations during the pre-election period. NNPCL, in its usual fashion, blames hoarding or panic buying even in the face of economic crisis caused by unexpectedly high prices, cash crunch and adjusted supply machinery. The World Bank, the other day, proposed N750 per liter of fuel and one wonders if it is not trying to fuel the total collapse of Nigerian small and medium scale businesses or the economy in general. The IMF had previously proposed that banks raise interest rates as a way to control inflation in the country, even though they knew we had a spending glut and structural inflation. Both companies do not understand Nigeria’s economy or that they are playing ostrich.

A promise to start production at one of the local refineries by December 2023 remains unfulfilled as December ends in less than two weeks. Expect another lie very soon. The government should do all it can to help modular refineries, including those owned by the Edo State government, take off or expand. Relying on the Dangote Refinery to bail the country out of petrol supply is a wrong move. The refinery is interested in earning foreign currencies in naira as it does not pay its Indian workers in naira. So the government should be more concerned about supplying crude oil to modular refineries than Dangote business.

There is no improvement in power supply and in fact, the situation can be described as dire. Electricity suppliers no longer announce price hikes but silently adjust prices to meet projected profits. Like Nigerian goods, Nigerian politics where money doesn’t get value for money is a place where our electoral efforts don’t get value for money. In six months, what has changed positively? Poverty deepens. The president and the vice president should sit down with the economic committee and chart a short-term crash course so that in six months, Nigerians will not only see the light at the end of the tunnel, but the light coming out. Tunnel.