Nigeria should shine it's eyes and see what is happening in Venuzela, a country that it shares things in common with. First and foremost, the two nations are pioneers and remain members of the 12 countries that formed the influencial global oil cartel - Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
Like Nigeria, Venuzela was also until the recent past, an agricultural commodites exporter that earned extra foreign reserve. It used to rival Ivory Cost and Ghana in Coco production and export.
But that is where the similarity with Nigeria ends, because Venuzela also used to export coffee beans, rice, fish and fruits and vegetables. During my five years academic stay in the United States in the early 1980s, bananas from that south American rich country imported by the Dole brand were my favourite.
Today, Venuzela is a shadow of itself, largely due to lack of sound economic policies and over-reliance on imported finished goods and food. The petro-dollars were mismanaged and citizens at a point, just stopped being productive and only spent their powerful currency, the Bolivar on luxury goods and foreign gourmet food.
Venuzelans are now paying for the mistakes made by their most popular leader in history - Hugo Chavez. An orator with the capacity to turn stone into a ball of cotton, Chavez could neither be said to be core socialist nor had any incline on the basics of capitalism. He also failed to draft economists in to his government, because he was under the illusion that he knew all.
He blindly opened the country's foreign resrves, 60 per cent of which were in gold, stashed across the Atlantic in the vaults of British banks in London. During the global economic meltdown in 2004, he repartriated morethan half of the savings to his country and spent it like there is no tomorrow.
By the time he passed away from cancer in 2013, his lieutenant, Nicolas Maduro continued with the statusquo and today, the country has totally collapsed.
There is no food, no water, no power and no medicine. In fact, it is so bad that the authorities do not even have the paper to print money. Venuzela has the ignomous record of having the highest inflation in the world. Moodys credit rating put it as the "worst" in economic history. The Bolivar now exchanges for 1032 to the dollar.
How did an agricultural and oil rich country with a mere population of under 32 million came in to this mess? The answer is simple. Lack of economic planning that stemmed from lack of sound economic team and advisers. A trend that is unfortunately emerging in this country.
President Buhari does not have an economic team and the earlier he realises this, the better for the nation. The vice president (an excellent gentleman) that he appointed the chairman of the team is a lawyer, not an economist. The CBN Governor has proven to be a disaster with his experimental economics. Nothing he tried that workd so far. The Finance Minister is still learning on the job from her brief stint as finance commissioner in Ogun State. She is largely impressive in expressions as she commands and sounds great with the Queen's language, but no substance.
Time for experiments are over. We still have confidence in our President to turn things around just like he wiped away Boko Haram and the corruption monster. He neads to be strong, bold and steadfast with the economy. He needs a team that will get us out of the woods, away from the path that the Venuzelan leaders have taken their country to, whereby even the dustbin is empty.
President Buhari also needs to be wary of states governors. Having realised that former President Jonthan was "clueless" and desperate for second term, they practically forced him into dipping more into our reserves to give them for an untanable reason that they needed the money to develop their states, when facts later emerged that they only helped themselves to the largese, leaving their states dry and poorer.
Post A Comment:
0 comments: