Dead-ends, myths and stupidity

The official leader of this last group is undoubtedly Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, (or Madam), the outgoing (thank God!) Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, not only because she is the leading guru of PDP-Economics, but also because she has planted her people throughout the system and thus must accept personal responsibility for the […]

The official leader of this last group is undoubtedly Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, (or Madam), the outgoing (thank God!) Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, not only because she is the leading guru of PDP-Economics, but also because she has planted her people throughout the system and thus must accept personal responsibility for the mess we are in today. Yes, Jonathan appointed her so the buck stops with him. But the poor chap is clueless even of “home economics”. Sadly, as the former CBN Governor, Charles Soludo said, while Madam enjoys accepting credits she hates to own up to her shortcomings.
Let me use the response of one of her supporters published in the Daily Times of Tuesday 12 May, 2015 (as well as the Compass, Nigerian Herald and other papers, several websites and blogs last week) as a starting point. Titled “Sanusi Abubakar: Of lies and twisted logic” and written by one John T Kyaave, it tried to argue that:
“Sanusi deliberately ignored publicly known facts, twisted logic and forcefully tried to bring the name of Dr Mrs Okonjo-Iweala to disrepute.
Okonjo-Iweala has done a good job of managing the Nigerian economy. (F)acts are facts and they cannot be hidden. Under her watch, we now know that we have the largest economy in Africa that despite the steep fall in oil prices is still projected to grow at an enviable 4.8 percent. Under her watch the Nigerian economy has attained its highest level of economic diversification with the non-oil sectors like Agriculture, Manufacturing, Services driving growth; under her effective coordination, the Nigerian economy has not caved in, food prices are relatively stable, inflation is still single digit, salaries are being paid promptly after six months of suffering a 50 percent cash crunch from the fall of oil prices.
This economic model which Sanusi Abubakar questions has also seen the birth of strong government backed but private sector led institutions like the Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) which is set to ignite the strong growth of small businesses.
The world and objective Nigerians have all hailed these as representing good strategies for fixing unemployment and poverty in Nigeria.”
I have no idea whether the chap actually lives in Nigeria or where he gets his “facts” from, but praise singing can get him very far. Perhaps she may even consider taking him along to the World Bank (or wherever it is that she is going). But go she must, because we are fed up with fairy tales and crooked statistics. As Soludo said:
“What worries me is that this government is the first in our history to attempt to manipulate our national statistics under Okonjo-Iweala. When NBS published the poverty figures in 2011, she felt indicted and incensed. She called upon the World Bank to come and examine the ‘methodology’ and get NBS to ‘review’ its numbers. Oby Ezekwesili (as VP Africa Region rejected the call to try to tamper with a country’s statistics). Once Oby left, the ‘World Bank’ started talking about ‘new figures’, without conducting any new surveys.
“I was told about it by a World Bank economist, and I cautioned that it was a dangerous gamble that would damage the credibility of the NBS. If you want to ‘review methodology’, you conduct another survey; but you can’t change ‘methodology’ because you don’t like the published figures. No government in our history has tried it. At this rate, who will believe statistics coming from the Nigerian government again? Is it now the World Bank that sits in Washington and allocates poverty numbers to Nigeria? Something smells here!”
Actually, what smells is the whole rotten contraption they were putting in place. No jobs, no hopes, rising inequality, epileptic power and water supply, high maternal and infant mortality, low life expectancy and yet 250 new private jets and fancy PowerPoint presentations! Who are they kidding, for goodness’ sake?
Politicising rebasing as the achievement of Madam (and the PDP) is a very cheap shot; but not a surprising one.  I always suspected they would end up doing that. Countries usually rebase their GDP statistics every 5 years; but Nigeria waited 24 years and ended up discovering that our economy is larger and more diversified than we thought and suddenly we are told it is the result of Jonathan and Madam Ngozi’s wizardry? Compared to most of our peers we still have some of the lowest contribution of manufacturing to GDP (and thus less jobs created), lowest rail and road networks, lowest electricity, water, sanitation, literacy and what have you. We have no fiscal buffers; we raise less non-oil revenue and have squandered all the savings we had. And the rainy days have arrived. We are the only member of OPEC that sells crude cheaply and import expensive refined products; all of these under her watch. We have also, under her watch, borrowed massively to pay for salaries, allowance and other recurrent items. What kind of fiscal husbandry is this?
The chap tried desperately to distance her from the whole fuel-subsidy racket, claiming that “she had absolutely nothing to do with such” and adding that she “studiously went to work and initiated moves that eventually led to the setting up of a presidential committee to investigate fraud in the subsidy regime. Today, as a result of her efforts, the high level of manipulation and fraud that existed in the management of fuel subsidy has been substantially dealt with”. So, if the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy has nothing to do with a N3 trillion-plus haemorrhage from public coppers, who should we blame? 
He also credited her with “a successful restructuring of the import duty waivers and substantially reduced the blatant abuses that characterised the scheme…. As a result, business opportunities have increased and jobs have been created”. Really! Then how does he explain the billions of dollars lost to tax waivers for rice importers? Or the over US$20 billion losses that resulted from fraudulent tax waivers and false pioneer status granted to some oil sector operators?
And what was that about a Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) which is “set to ignite the strong growth of small businesses”? Did she need six years to come up with this last minute “joker”? Should we then keep her on, just so that this may be actualised? Honestly, all I can say is “Madam, please, just go!” And take along your half-baked, poorly-digested World Bank/IMF contraptions and myths that have never really worked in any developing country. There are many alternative ways of doing things; some have been tried with disastrous results. They lead to dead-ends. It is time we tried something else.
To be continued.