Hadjia Zainab Ahmed, Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning
Over the years, the Nigerian economy has been waking from one nightmare to another due to poor management of the country’s economy, especially from 2015 till date.
Even the common man on the street has been complaining in recent times that things have never been this bad in the past before the advent of the present administration. The reason for the worsening economic situation cannot be farfetched by learned minds who understand the economy of scales. Too much borrowing is the culprit of the paradise of hardships blowing everywhere today.
An economy that is solely dependent on borrowing to finance projects will never be able to stand the test of time. Hence, excessive borrowing has led to a great crash of the value of naira (Nigeria’s legal tender for commerce) in the committee of many world currencies such as the American dollar and British pound. Lesser countries currencies like those of Botswana and South Africa have become lords over the naira too, in exchange rate value.
Since, excessive borrowing has become a kind of ministry in the current administration, it has been responsible for the continuous increase in the prices of goods and services nearly every day.
Prayer and fasting cannot reverse the situation.
This is because, prayer and fasting do not produce goods for exports, that can help to bring in foreign exchange into the blood stream of naira to reinvigorate it from its present moribund value both locally and internationally.
Therefore, neither the present administration nor the citizenry should believe that consulting prayer warriors of any religious sect can make the economy improve and halt the borrowing of more funds. We are a people who believe too much in prayer without taking practical steps to do things that can improve our status quo. Why have prayer and fasting not turned around the value of naira or made exportable goods fall like manna in the manner of the incident that happened during the days of the Israelites journey to the Promised land?
Better still, why have the religious marabout’s some government officials were reported by the media of usually consulting to pray on their behalf, not been able to ask their spiritual advisers to command funds from the sky to stop Nigeria from continuing to be an Oliver Twist for foreign funds? These are just part of the few posers every reasonable Nigerian should ponder about, and stop living in a fool’s paradise that a miracle will happen to end the effects of excessive borrowing on the nation’s economy.
Government must look inwards by investing in local production of agricultural products in a very large scale for exportation. The excessive reliance on one single product such as the crude oil is the major reason the economy has been crumbling as a result of the mismanagement of revenue realised from its export. This is why government keep borrowing to fund projects. Then another question that comes to mind is: “What are the accruing benefits that the projects which the excessively borrowed funds have added to the growth of the economy?”
Some schools of thought may argue that infrastructural development can help to boost the movement of goods and services for economic growth. But is there any evidence to prove so in the past seven years that the present administration has been in charge of the Nigerian economy? How much of the borrowed funds have been invested in the agricultural sector to make food abundantly available for the citizenry and reduce inflation.
The cause of the increasing inflation is because there are very few goods being chased after by a multitude of folks. Even when government decide to share money to the citizenry, it will not help to checkmate the effects of inflation on the value of naira’s buying power for goods and services.
As long as government continue to depend on foreign funds to execute infrastructural development, without concentrating on the production of agricultural sector, the naira will continue to crumble in value while the majority of Nigerians will continue to wander in the paradise of pains and poverty. It is time to put a stop to excessive borrowing by investing in large scale agricultural products.
