After exiting recession by now the Naira should have recovered and appreciated against the dollar by at least 30%. That is not so. Naira exchanges for dollar at 360 or higher.
The World Bank said for Naira to match dollar one to one, we must have foreign reserve of $900bn. But as at October, we only have $40.95bn. It is a tall order for any government.
But remember from independence to date, Nigeria generated over one trillion dollars and wasted it on corruption. We save to steal the money. It is the reason why I wrote to condemn government savings since our economy does not operate on any modern economic principle.
A nation whose president could issue a handwritten note for CBN governor to drive vans and empty vaults with billions of dollars has no business with economics. Worse is that not only is the succeeding government failing to punish the culprits, it is still keeping the same CBN governor on the job.
Why is Nigeria in this mess?
The dysfunctional nature of the Nigerian economy makes the nation extremely vulnerable to vagaries of international oil price fluctuations.
The nation earns its foreign exchange from oil,at least up to 98%. This is the price Nigeria has to pay for the lack of strategic vision by its past leaders. At least no government made any attempt to change the structure of Nigerian economy in a way that will make it less dependent on oil.
All developed economies have one thing in common, they manufacture goods and produce services and have various streams of foreign earning. They create demands for the rest of the world to buy.
Common sense should tell us we need to create and manufacture goods for us to prosper. We are a religious nation but we forget that we fear and worship God because of his creations.
Any hope that the Buhari government will change the trend is dead on arrival now that he is already in his second term.
We still depend on our foreign exchange earning on oil export. We still import everything. The president does not use anything Nigerian. The same with ministers and governors. So we are back to ground zero.
By Aliyu Nuhu
