THE STATE OF THE NATION BEING TEXT OF SPEECH BY PASTOR ‘TUNDE BAKARE AT THE STATE OF THE NATION BROADCAST ON SUNDAY THE 4TH OF JANUARY, 2015. VENUE: THE LATTER RAIN ASSEMBLY, END-TIME CHURCH, 4, AKILO ROAD, OFF OBA AKRAN AVENUE, OGBA, IKEJA, LAGOS. Today, Nigeria is supposedly the largest economy in Africa, surpassing South Africa and Egypt with a GDP of $522 billion, a value obtained since the rebasing of the economy in April 2014. With this nominal GDP, Nigeria is now the 26th largest economy in the world. It would appear, then, that her aspiration to become one of the twenty largest economies in the world by 2020 is within reach. However, whenever the GDP figures are brandished by the government as signs of achievement, red flags start emerging as the people look around them and wonder if GDP stands for garri don peme because even staple foods are becoming unaffordable to the so-called ordinary Nigerian. In any case, we need not go into those socio-economic realities that challenge the bogus claims of economic growth; let us simply dwell in the realm of economic statistics with which experts have often attempted to blind the eyes of Nigerians. According to the National Bureau of Statistics as well as Trading Economics, a resource centre for economic indicators for countries the world over including Nigeria, there was a decline in average GDP growth rate between the third quarter of 2011 and the first quarter of 2014 with growth declining to an average rate of 4.5% within that period compared to earlier rates as well as a 2014 rate of 6%. Were these not signs of a staggering economy; signs that were strongly denied by the government until recently when the fact could no longer be hidden following the fall in oil prices? One also wonders if this decline was not the pointer to the fact that the economy could no longer sustain the massive corruption in the fuel subsidy regime which then informed the attempted subsidy removal and the increase in fuel price in January 2012, a policy which the people protested, defying intimidation until the protests were crushed by a combined force of political intrigues, economic sell-outs and military deployment with no action taken against the major culprits in the subsidy fraud. Also, one wonders if, despite all the acclaimed benefits of the rebasing exercise, it was not mere recourse to plastic surgery as an attempted solution to an internal disease in a last-minute effort to window-dress the economy and attract investments rather than address the problems fundamentally, considering the fact that it was done in the first quarter of 2014. The gap between the bogus GDP claims and the economic realities of Nigerians is seen in the fact that Nigeria, according to the World Bank, has one of the lowest GDP per capita based on purchasing power parity (PPP) in the world at the 123rd position out of 185 countries, thus revealing that the value of our currency as an import-dependent economy makes our GDP claims of little worth. Worse still, the level of inequality in the distribution of wealth that shows that a select few have cornered the wealth of the nation is seen in a Gini coefficient of 43.8 which is one of the highest inequality indicators in the world according to World Bank statistics. To explain to Nigerians what this means, the Leadership newspaper of March 1, 2014 revealed that in a population of about 170 million people, only about twelve Nigerians control one-eighth of the entire Nigerian economy! More damning revelations were unveiled in an article titled “Bitter Truths about Economy the Jonathan Govt. Does Not Want Nigerians to Know”, published by Premium Times on December 22, 2014. In it, inconsistencies in statistical indicators being brandished by the government were unveiled. The fact was revealed that in the first five years of civil rule, oil prices were not as high as they were between 2009 and 2013. Yet, whereas in those first five years, we had fiscal surpluses, we have been having fiscal deficits despite the relatively more favourable oil prices between 2009 and 2013. It will also interest Nigerians to know that within the same period when oil prices were high, all other oil producing countries recorded surpluses and deployed those surpluses to long-term infrastructure projects while Nigeria was recording deficits and borrowing to service the deficits. Again, despite the fact that only about 70% of the budget is implemented annually in Nigeria, we keep borrowing and accumulating debt supposedly to service the contrived deficit. Also, whereas growth has supposedly remained strong, we have never been as indebted as we are now since our exit from the Paris Club with a $3.5 billion external debt and a N2.2 trillion naira domestic debt even though what the debt has been used to achieve remains to be seen. Considering the negative correlation between growth and public debt, does this not suggest a statistical window-dressing of our claims of growth? Why do we store our excess earnings in foreign reserves that give us a paltry 3% interest while we accumulate debt at an average interest rate of 13-15%? Even worse is the fact that, according to Chatham House, oil theft averages $3-8 billion annually. Yet, this monumental loss of an industrial scale does not reflect negatively in our growth claims. Definitely, some voodoo economists are cooking our books. Continue reading here.. savenigeriagroup/2015/01/04/the-gathering-storm-and-avoidable-shipwreck-how-to-avoid-catastrophic-euroclydon/
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 18:14:32 +0000
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