Nigeria’s Economy: How Healthy?

Watchers of the Nigerian economy
were recently treated to
discordant tunes over the state of the nation’s economy by some key players in the sector. A lot of people were taken aback when the Finance Minister and the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria gave conflicting reports of the state of the Nigerian economy.
The controversy over the state of affairs of the economy which was brought to public space by the pronouncements of the Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, on the one hand, and the Governor the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Lamido Sanusi Lamido on the other, has left so many persons bewildered.
This is so because while the Minister asserts that the economy was on course and stable, the CBN Governor insists that the contrary is true. That these two key officers would be saying different things on the same subject is bad, and that the administration cannot speak from one authorised source is also regrettable.
However, while the controversy lasted, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala came out to stoutly defend the economy, insisting that the country was not broke and that the nation had met all its obligations. To support her position, reference was made to the fact that out of N1.7 trillion of personnel costs and wages, N 1.3 trillion was paid, while on overheads, N 180 billion was released out of the N248 billion budget for that purpose.
To further buttress the fact that the economy was doing well despite shortfalls in revenue arising from massive crude oil theft and pipeline vandalism, the Minister said that on capital budget N850 billion, 95 per cent cash-backed had been released, while 75 per cent of that amount had been utilised. She then wondered where those who claim that the economy had derailed got their facts from.
Even so, while the Finance Minister says all is well some realities on ground can only be worrisome. In addition to the fact that Finance Commissioners were walking out of Federation Accounts Allocation Committee meetings, reports of shortfalls in payment to the various tiers of government do not also add up.
While The Tide is not unaware of the on-going economic sabotage being perpetrated by oil thieves and its negative impact on the nation’s economy, our concern is rooted in the fact that the conflicting reports hitherto fed the public on the state of the economy, is capable of sending wrong signals.
We think that an issue as serious as the prevailing condition of the nation’s economy should not be an issue to guess or argue about. It should be fact based. Indeed it should be made available to the public only by the Coordinating Minister of the Economy whose responsibility it is to aggregate the performance of all the sectors.
To avoid further contradictions on the state of the economy and to build the much needed confidence, government functionaries should double check their facts and not raise doubts and speculations that are capable of injuring the polity. Because it is important for Nigerians to participate actively in the economy the truth about the state of affairs is very necessary. In fact, we ask that the true version be released now.