Preface

In the third quarter of 2016, the Nigerian economy officially slipped into a recession. Even though this was expected since the price of crude oil which is the main stay of the Nigerian economy had been on a downward spiral since 2014, i was still shocked that the Nigerian government never took any meaningful steps to avert the then imminent recession.

Given the time frame between the events that led to the recession and the recession itself, the two administrations of Jonathan and Buhari ought to be held responsible for their actions or lack of it which made the country fall into recession. While it is understandable (but not excusable) that in an election year, the economy will receive very little attention as politicians will be fully engrossed with their politicking and this may perhaps explain why the Jonathan administration failed to take necessary steps to avert the recession, i had expected that the incoming Buhari administration knowing fully well that it was taking over a depressed economy would have constituted a strong economic team immediately upon resuming office and get to work straight away on taking steps and measures to avoid the recession and revamp the economy.

Sadly the administration never gave it a thought and did not even deem it fit to even appoint an economic adviser at a time the country needed sound economic thinking the most. To me, it was this irresponsible inaction on the part of government that was most responsible for the 2016 recession.

Only a few years earlier between 2006 and 2011, the Nigerian economy was the fastest growing in Africa and one of the fastest growing in the world. This culminated in Nigeria being recognized as the biggest economy in Africa and the 25th biggest economy in the world in 2013 with a GDP size in excess of $500 billion. The country was even projected to become one of the top ten biggest economies in the world by 2040 given the growth rate then and the potentials inherent in the country’s economy. It was thus a huge anti climax when just a few years down the line the country was allowed to slide into an avoidable recession in 2016 and emerged as the “Poverty capital of the world” in 2018.

The even worse thing is that whilst other poor countries were developing their economies and pulling their citizens out of poverty, studies showed that poverty rate in Nigeria was on the increase with 6 citizens being plunged into poverty every minute culminating in 3,153,600 additional Nigerians falling into poverty every year under the present administration. This amounted to a really sad development for a country that had the potentials of being one of the fastest growing economies in the world if only the country had good leadership and the right economic policies had been put in place.

It was this seeming contradiction between the huge potential of the Nigerian economy and the sad reality of growing poverty in the country today that spurred me on to write this book.

Given my training as an economist and my passion for the Nigerian economy, i have always monitored developments in the Nigerian economy and given deep thoughts to proffering solutions for the various economic problems that she has, with my ultimate desire being to see a Nigerian economy that will be amongst the biggest and most stable in the world.

 I also realized that the country’s greatest asset (the people) was also her greatest liability and the key to fully unlocking the potentials of the Nigerian economy lies with being able to fully harness her human capital potentials. This can be achieved through a massive national re-orientation program to change the way we think and our attitude as Nigerians and through massive investments in education at all levels. It is only on this basis that the economic policies suggested in this book will work and the long term sustainability will be assured.

In writing this book, i have taken time to study and carry out research on the Nigerian economy and i have been able to proffer solutions and suggestions with which we can rapidly grow the country’s economy. However i am not naive enough to believe that it will work perfectly even if the suggestions in it are adopted wholesale by the government because as we economist will say “Ceteris paribus” which means it will work only if “all things being equal” and as we know, all things in Nigeria are never equal as vested interests will always vehemently resist anything that threatens the status quo.

Also for the economic plan to work it will need a very strong a determined leadership that will have to take decisions that are not politically expedient. This means that the political class might not be so willing to implement some of the ideas suggested in the plan but in all i hope i have been able to demonstrate through this book the huge potentials of the Nigerian economy and perhaps maybe some day, policy makers might decide to borrow some of the ideas proffered in it to implement and grow our economy for the benefit of all Nigerians.