After a ruckus combined by his initial article, former CBN governor Charles Soludo has created a new article, this time in response to Finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
Grab some popcorn, given a essay is prolonged in customary Soludo fashion.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and a Missing Trillions (1) Chukwuma Charles Soludo
I review some of a responses to my article, “Buhari vs Jonathan: Beyond a Election”, and we wish to appreciate everybody who has contributed to a debate. we am blissful that a plead has finally taken off. we have decided, for a record, to re-enter a plead if usually to set some annals loyal and hopefully rouse a plead further. Whom do we respond to? First, let me appreciate Gov Kayode Fayemi for his unequivocally mature and veteran response on seductiveness of a APC. It forms a good basement for deepening a conversation. Pat Utomi, Oby Ezekwesili, Iyabo Obasanjo, and thousands of other nationalistic Nigerians have lifted a calm of a debate. Femi Fani-Kayode finished me laugh, as usual. The Gov. Jang coterie of a Governors’ Forum played a common politics, nonetheless we know what many of them consider privately. Who else? Oh, Peter Obi. Well, given he can’t write and designated Valentine as common to write for him (who never doubtful a NBS statistics that Obi pennyless universe record in a pauperization of Anambra people though instead focused on lies and abuses) we won’t enhance him with a response here. His third category opening in Anambra will be a theme of a extensive essay later.
Here, we will concentration on Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s response (as Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of a Economy—CME and hence on seductiveness of a Federal Government). Since we have famous her, out of low respect, we have never called her by her name: we call her Madam. we contingency state that we have good heedfulness saying myself on a conflicting side of a list with Madam, in this way. we honour you, Madam, and will always do. If we review my essay of Sep 2010 (before we became Minister), a tinge and explication were as crafty as a stream one. It is my honest bid to safeguard that a choice of leaders is formed on severe inspection of what is on offer. Part of my disappointment is that 5 years after, all we warned about has come to occur and we are conducting a campaigns as if we are not in crisis. As a endangered Nigerian, we have a avocation to pronounce out again. Regrettably, we have taken it unequivocally personal.
I am not worried about a personal abuses: we indeed approaching worse. What name has a organisation not called President Obasanjo or any chairman who has dared to remonstrate with it of late? Anyone who disagrees with a organisation contingency possibly be ‘insane’ or have a ‘character’ scarcity or contingency be ‘looking for a job’ or ‘without honour’, or a ‘charlatan’. Yesterday, Sanusi purported that $20 billion was blank and he was indicted of sum financial mismanagement, foolishness and bad governance to a indicate of being a initial administrator of executive bank to be dangling from office. Today, he is a good one; and for adventurous to endowment an “F” class for a mercantile performance, Soludo has turn a ‘worst’ and ‘without character’ or maybe ‘looking for position’ (Lol!). Some days ago, a former boss was called ‘a engine park tout’ and ‘un-statesmanly’ usually for disagreeing. This “how brave we criticize us” mind-set of a organisation is dangerous for a democracy.
In this Part One of my designed 3 partial series, we will shorten it to a categorical issues we raised. we will not worry about a antagonistic attacks on my person. For me, it is zero personal. In early 2011, we had a identical exhilarated sell with afterwards Finance Minister Segun Aganga. But when a Nigerian economy was during seductiveness and he invited me to a stakeholders assembly in his bureau (as Minister of Trade and Investment) to plead Nigeria’s response to a incriminating EU- Economic Partnership for Africa (EPA), we flew into Nigeria for that (at my expense)— a initial and usually time we have been to any organisation bureau to plead routine given we left office. It is about Nigeria. we will, as expected, remind people like we of a distinct aspects of my record of open use in response to your charge; plea your explain to debt relief, and your reason for not saving; prominence your forgery of mercantile statistics and a lies in your response; though many importantly re-focus a courtesy to a ancestral mismanagement of a economy that we delicately avoided. we will uncover that while we are introducing purgation measures and shortly to immiserate a citizens, a open financial is haemorrhaging to a indicate that estimated over N30 trillion is blank or stolen or unaccounted for, or simply mismanaged— underneath your watch! We can’t go on like this, and we am positive that an choice destiny is possible. Can we have a open plead on this choice future? The issues during seductiveness are too grave to be trivialized by name calling. As we write, a naira sell rate to a dollar is during N215 (from N158 a few months ago) and unless oil cost recovers, this is usually a beginning. For a effect of Nigeria, we won’t keep still anymore!
Let me start with Madam’s rather comical, furious visualisation on my reign of bureau that we trust to be totally fake and baseless. we apologize upfront that in a routine of creation a ‘personal defence’, it is formidable to equivocate a rather worried importance on “I”. we did not wish that though given Madam has dragged us this low, we have small choice though to do so in a subsequent few paragraphs—just to keep a record straight!
In my view, there are 3 criteria for evaluating a open officer’s stewardship: a research by his employer; a compensation of a open he served; and a tough contribution of performance. As we will uncover on these 3 counts, we am positive that we left a universe record of open service, and a thousand Okonjo-Iwealas can't re-write that history. we served Nigeria underneath dual presidents (Obasanjo and Yar’Adua) and as my evident bosses, subsequent are their created testimonials of my record.
Said President Obasanjo (December 2004):
“Charles Soludo is a loyal Nigerian. He is a arrange of Nigerian that we all know we can rest on. Among his countless virtues is COURAGE. we have found in him a male who can take tough and picturesque decisions, mount his ground, teach others on a salience of his decision, and work unequivocally tough to safeguard that a preference is good and effectively implemented. His faithfulness to avocation is initial rate. His care qualities are excellent and his eagerness to listen and learn is simply infectious. Professor Soludo has within a brief time emerged as one of a heading lights of a nation. Not given he has a godfather though by ideal tough work, loyalty, faithfulness to duty, joining to a nation, creativity, and unmixed organisation with a remodel agenda….”
President Yar’Adua (May 2009) had a following to contend about a Central Bank of Nigeria underneath my leadership:
“… a CBN has achieved creditably good in delivering on a core mandates. This is generally even some-more so in a final 5 years. Most people would establish that though a successful banking converging and effective supervision of a unfamiliar reserves, a stream tellurian predicament would have jarred a financial complement and a inhabitant economy to their foundations with shocking consequences”.
In a President’s special notation of admiration after a execution of my reign of office, President Yar’Adua (June 2009) had a following to contend to me:
“As your reign as Governor of a Central Bank of Nigeria comes to a stately end, we write on seductiveness of a Government and people of Nigeria to place on record a debt of thankfulness to we for your dedicated use and odd clarity of avocation over a past 5 years. we am positive that your estimable qualifications in a CBN and in before appointments in a use of a republic sojourn sources of impulse to an whole generation. As we wish we even some-more strange successes in a years ahead, it is my romantic wish that we will straightforwardly use us of your renowned use when a need arises in a future”.
To a best of my knowledge, President Obasanjo has not altered those views even after 10 years. The views of my dual bosses, not a romantic outburst of an indignant chairman unfortunate to get even, are what count.
How did Nigerians weigh my open service? Unfortunately, we do not have systematic opinion polls on pursuit capitulation ratings for particular open officers. But if a open opinions of people and orderly groups (labour, employers, depositors, borrowers, stakeholders of a financial institutions, journal editorials, investors, etc) as voiced in thousands of newspaper/magazine clips during and after my reign are anything to go by, afterwards 82% of a open mostly establish with a sentiments voiced by my dual bosses. Your views go to a other 18% that is okay, after all, no one is perfect. Five Nigerian newspapers and magazines concurrently named us “man of a year” in one year— rare in Nigeria’s history. we do not speak about hundreds of awards and recognitions by several segments of a multitude (during and even after service) for “excellent open service”. we was quite overwhelmed by a ancestral endowment by a staff kinship of a Central Bank and a tears in a eyes of many as thousands of a staff gave me a station acclaim as we walked a aisle after my brief farewell speech.
Certainly, a general village (investors, bankers, scholars, donors, media, etc) took vicious notice of a series in Nigeria’s financial and financial system. we am target of 5 general awards as tellurian and African executive bank administrator of a year, not to discuss dozens of other recognitions (even after withdrawal office). The London Financial Times described us as “a good reformer”. Even as a tellurian mercantile and financial predicament raged in 2008, a United Nations General Assembly allocated me to offer on a Commission of Experts to remodel a general financial and financial system. You don’t designate someone who has ‘mismanaged’ his inhabitant financial complement to remodel a tellurian system. For 8 years until 2012, we served on a arch economist advisory legislature (CEAC) of a World Bank, and together with dual Nobel Prize winners in economics and other experts we met intermittently and suggested dual presidents and dual arch economists of a World Bank, and in 2011, we served on a External Advisory Group of a IMF. Again, these are not positions for ‘mis-managers’. Since we left office, we have been advising countries and executive banks; and there is frequency any dual months we don’t consult/advise on banking/financial and financial policy. we have given these illustrations to make a indicate that for any one Okonjo-Iweala’s try to rewrite history, there are thousands who disagree.
Now, to some fundamental contribution of a stewardship! we will be brief as we have a whole book to tell my story. As arch mercantile adviser, we had suggested that a banking complement could not support a private sector-led economy envisioned underneath NEEDS. When we insincere bureau during CBN, we hereditary 89 rickety, mostly family banks (all of that put together were not adult to a distance of series 4 bank in South Africa). Many were insolvent, with depositors’ income trapped, and 20 some-more about to collapse. To get a credit of $300 million substantially compulsory all a banks to associate it. For me, there was a inhabitant emergency. we drafted a 13-point remodel agenda, discussed and resolved all a specifics with a President, and his VP; as good as my supervision group during a CBN, and we swung into action. President Obasanjo betrothed 100% support and indeed delivered 1000%— that was decisive. we apologize to we Madam given we did not brief or surprise we about it. We usually wanted to keep it trusted given a attraction of a announcement. It is on record that we never upheld it.
It was both a series and a fight and many people suspicion it was “impossible”, though appreciate God we succeeded. For a initial time in Nigeria’s story a routine of that bulk was announced and deadline kept with precision. We were bold to devaluate a licenses of 14 banks, including those of my friends, in one day. The FT-Banker resolved that a scale, precision, and cost of a mutation were rare in a world. Before then, Malaysia had a slightest cost of banking converging during 5% of Malaysian GDP. It did not cost Nigerian taxpayers one penny. Twenty-five new, stronger banks emerged though a absolute suspicion behind converging lighted something even some-more powerful—‘the competition to a top’. Banks lifted some-more capital, and even banks like First Bank, Zenith, GTB, etc that did not combine with others went on collateral lifting several times. The effect was aloft levels of capitalization and within dual years, 14 Nigerian banks were in a tip 1000 banks in a universe and dual in a tip 300 (no Nigerian bank was in a tip 1000 before we came). Even after we left office, still 9 banks were in a tip 1000. Our prophesy was to have a Nigerian bank in a tip 100 banks within 10 years. As we see a new Access bank; Zenith, GTB, Fidelity, Diamond, UBA, FBN, FCMB, Skye, Stanbic IBTC, Union, Ecobank, etc, we can't though feel that we have taken hulk stairs forward.
Deposits and credit soared (from hardly N1.2 trillion to over N7 trillion); new technologies (ATM and e-banking) boomed, and banks had 57,000 new jobs; mega businesses emerged (ask any vital user in a Nigerian economy their trust with banking and credit before and after Soludo —the Dangotes, Arik, MM2, oil and gas operators; etc); collateral marketplace boomed and dominated by a banking sector. It was a new emergence for Nigerian private sector. we have listened Dangote twice contend that he would not be nearby as large as he is currently though a banking consolidation. Many other stakeholders still contend it today. FDI and portfolio inflows flooded into Nigeria. The universe celebrated, and one singular transformative suspicion has altered a face of a private zone and economy forever. Banks became Nigeria’s initial transnational companies with about 37 branches outward of Nigeria.
Nigeria survived a tellurian predicament given of this, and it is a banking zone that has mostly been powering a mercantile expansion we explain (compare banks trillions of naira credit for investments in a prolific zone with your government’s miserable outlay on vicious infrastructure and investment; many of your borrowing – holds – is from a banks). Your privatization of energy sector, several PPP projects on infrastructure, etc, are now probable given of a mega banks. Today, Nigerian banks associate multi-billion dollar loans— inconceivable before. Madam, if a converging was ‘mismanaged’, there would not have been any bank to start with in a emanate of a tellurian crisis— as President Yar’adua rightly forked out. Even you, during a new display during a Banquet Hall in Abuja advertised converging as a ancestral achievement. How can we commend a ‘mis-managed’ devise as an superb achievement? As we contend in Igbo, we can’t cover a moon with your palms.
Let me be clear: a quantum distance of a new banks following converging presented hurdles of risk supervision and supervision. We deployed all we had and bustling a CBN staff. The carry-over of bad loans from a combined banks was fast spotless up. To a best of my knowledge, we instituted difficult regulatory and supervisory regime (consistent with best practices during a time). We even had proprietor examiners in a banks and compulsory bank MDs to privately pointer their reports to CBN. we remember that a former MD of GTB complained of “regulatory intrusiveness”. To a credit, non-performing loans (NPL) came down from 22% in 2003 and 2004 to 6% as during 2008. Anywhere in a world, a executive bank that brought NPL from 22% to 6% over a 4 year duration does not demeanour like one with a lax supervisory regime. Name other building countries that achieved better, Madam. So, on indicate of fact, Madam lied. Yours was a forward avowal though basement by a Finance Minister.
The banks in Nigeria were supervised by a CBN and NDIC, though other institutions— general firms that audited them, general rating agencies that also examined their books, collateral marketplace operators given many were listed companies — all had oversight. we put on record that there was never any information/report of infractions by any bank that was brought to my courtesy and that we did not act on decisively during my tenure. we listened a criticism that some of a bank MDs were my friends. Well, my response is that maybe as CME we should kill all your friends handling in a economy or turn their enemies. For a record, my inheritor audited all a banks and zero of my supposed friends was indicted. It speaks volumes. Indeed, it is also a fact that a purported personal rapist infractions (including lapses in corporate governance Madam alluded to) by some bank CEOs were found out, usually AFTER they had been private from office. My inheritor told me that a extensive review of a banks did not exhibit such infractions. Of course, we contingency be God or have a special spill from inside to get to such information while a MDs are in office. Unfortunately, all over a world, no financial complement has succeeded in routing out all rapist behaviours by a operators. So, Madam, we plea we to yield one fragment of justification that ‘there was no subdivision between regulators and regulated’ or be satisfactory adequate to redress your forward statement.
What happened? The amazing and rare predicament of 2008/09 strike a world. More than 40 US and European banks possibly collapsed or were jarred badly (remember a Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Wachovia, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, even UBS, etc) and hundreds of billions of dollars were spent to bail them out. The contamination effects widespread like a furious fire, destroying inhabitant batch markets and banks. The nascent (big) banks in Nigeria faced remarkable mixed shocks— liquidity, sell rate, oil price, collateral market, etc. As oil prices collapsed, loans to oil and gas became non-performing overnight; loans to a collateral marketplace became non-performing overnight; etc. Our initial priority was to save a whole banking complement and a economy from systemic collapse. we positive Nigerians that no bank would be authorised to fail, and not many people know what it took to grasp it. Once we had navigated by a astonishing /unprecedented turbulence, we laid out a extensive devise to purify adult a waste that we presented to stakeholders in Lagos (March 2009). we had pleaded with a Senate to pass a AMCON check that we sent to them in 2004. But we had a extensive devise to finish a clean-up with or though AMCON by a finish of 2009, including second turn converging and a N500 billion comment (my book will fact all these). we left behind an 11-volume request of a Financial System Strategy 2020 (FSS2020) that has remained a routine roadmap for a CBN/financial zone given we left office.
I have dual analogies for a experience. Ours was unequivocally like an aeroplane that was cruising and astonishing meets an astonishing and rare turbulence. After a pilots and a organisation attain in navigating by a intensity pile-up and substantially land a airplane, people demeanour in and start blaming a organisation for a damaged tea cups, chairs, and drinks that fell during a turmoil as justification that a organisation never kept a aeroplane purify or serviced it. My second analogy is that of a remarkable trembler in a segment it was never approaching and some houses collapsed. All of a sudden, a housing supervision is to censure for not requiring earthquake-proof foundations for a houses. Well, my authorised experts call it force majeure, an act of nature!
To be fair, after any crisis, there are lessons (and my book will fact what, with advantage of that experience, we should have finished differently). Risk management— that has always been there— now took a new centre theatre all over a universe following a crisis. But for anyone to advise that CBN underneath me, for one minute, took a eyes off a round is, to contend a least, ludicrous. The US financial complement literally crippled a universe costing America hundreds of billions of dollars though no one has suggested that Alan Greenspan is no longer a good maestro!
AMCON is a large subject (which we will residence during a after date) though her claims uncover possibly stupidity or mischief. She claims that N5.7 trillion of AMCON supports was used to rescue banks and a ‘bond issued’ as ‘cost to taxpayers’. Really? we will understanding with a AMCON we envisaged and a AMCON underneath we after though let me state that even if 100% of a banks’ NPL was offloaded on AMCON, it would not be adult to N5.7 trillion. Enough pronounced for now. The fact is that a Federal Government has not put a penny in a AMCON fund: a banking complement is financing itself, and together with a falling comment by banks, AMCON positively can’t default (thanks to converging that a banks are now large adequate to cough out such supports to solve a system’s problem). Did we intend to mistreat a readers by refusing to tell them that many of a AMCON comment is ‘investment’ and not ‘expense’. Am certain we listened a IMF’s alarm about dignified hazard? If we want, we can have a focused plead on AMCON.
Next, let me quickly respond to a few outlandish claims. She brags about ‘single-digit’ acceleration rate ‘now’ and alleges that when we left office, acceleration was above 13%. we usually laughed during this one. In Nigeria’s history, no administrator of a Central Bank has delivered 24 uninterrupted months of singular series acceleration as we did until a appearance of a rare tellurian predicament in 2008. It was not for zero that a universe cheered us as financial routine czar, Madam! Perhaps we are also not wakeful that we pennyless a universe record by carrying a unheeded genuine effective sell rate during a time of trade bang and this was during a heart of a haven accumulation and a portfolio/FDI inflows. we resisted a IMF recommendation to exhaust pot for liquidity management, and Nigeria had adequate self-insurance to tarry a tellurian crisis. The conflicting has happened underneath we Madam, and a Nigerian economy is in trouble. Naira sell rate appreciated underneath me from N133 to N117 before a tellurian crisis; and pot grew to all time high of $62 billion. For a initial time given 1986, a official, interbank and together marketplace sell rates converged underneath me. You can’t compare these records!
I hereby plea your try to censure others for not saving for a stormy day. It is not a trait when we are discerning to suitable all a credit when things are going well, though change a censure when they go wrong. You censure a state governors— who, according to you, have taken a Federal Government to a Supreme Court—not that a Supreme Court visualisation forced your hands. For your information, a governors have never resolved to assets and always threatened justice movement even underneath Obasanjo. Why did we save underneath Obasanjo though not underneath Jonathan? Two keywords explain it: care and integrity. Governor Amaechi pronounced a governors insisted on pity a supports given they found out that we were illegally fiddling with a savings. So, as Nigerians still wonder, if billions of dollars are now ‘missing’ underneath your nose, since should governors trust we to keep their money? Do a states that have taken a sovereign organisation to a Supreme Court and refused to save also embody a PDP governors—who are in a majority? If so, afterwards it is fatal: even governors of your possess party, PDP, do not trust we to keep their money! Furthermore, did a governors also stop a Federal Government from saving partial of a share? If we ran a over-abundance bill during a Federal level, we would have had credit to censure others or to contend they did not listen to your advice. The pivotal indicate is that given we were regulating outrageous deficits yourself, it was also in your possess seductiveness to share a ECA. You did not uncover care or credibility, full stop!
Next, Madam, we was unequivocally broke for we to review that one of a reasons for disappearing forex pot is ‘oil theft’. Under we as Minister of Finance and coordinator of a economy, a basket of a inhabitant book is leaking openly from all sides. Just a few illustrations! First, we acknowledge that ‘oil theft’ has reduced oil outlay from a normal 2.3 – 2.4 million barrels per day (mpd) to 1.95mpd (meaning that during slightest 350,000 to 450,000 barrels per day are being ‘stolen’. On a normal of 400,000 per day and a oil prices over a past 4 years, it comes to about $60 billion ‘stolen’ in usually 4 years. In today’s sell rate, that is about N12.6 trillion. This is during a time of relinquishment of predicament in a Niger Delta and freedom programme. Can we tell Nigerians how many a freedom programme costs, and also a annual cost for ‘protecting’ a pipelines and confidence of oil wells? And a ‘thieves’ are spirits? Come on, Madam!
Second, my progressing essay settled that a smallest forex pot should have been during slightest $90 billion by now and we did not plea it. Rather it is about $30 billion, definition that sum mismanagement has denied a nation some $60 billion or another N12.6 trillion.
Now supplement a ‘missing’ $20 billion from a NNPC. You betrothed a discuss review news ‘soon’, and some-more than a year after a Report itself is still ‘missing’. This is over N4 trillion, and we don’t know how many some-more has ‘missed’ given Sanusi cried out. How many trillions of naira were paid for oil funding (unappropriated?). How many trillions (in tangible fact) have been ‘lost’ by etiquette avocation waivers over a final 4 years? As coordinator of a economy, can we tell Nigerians since a cost of automotive gas oil (AGO), popularly called diesel, has still not come down notwithstanding a pile-up in tellurian wanton oil prices, and how many is being appropriated by friends in a process? Be honest: do we unequivocally know (as coordinator and apportion of finance) how many trillions of Naira, self- financing organisation agencies acquire and spend? we have a prolonged list though let me wait for now. we do not wish to speak about other ‘black pots’ that strike on inhabitant security. My estimate, Madam, is that substantially some-more than N30 trillion has possibly been stolen or mislaid or unaccounted for or simply mismanaged underneath your sharp eyes in a past 4 years. Since we explain to be in charge, Nigerians are right to ask we to account. Think about what this volume could meant for a 112 million bad Nigerians or for a schools, hospitals, roads, etc. Soon, we will start seeking a adults to compensate this or that tax, while some faceless “thieves” were pocketing over $40 million per day from oil alone.
You alluded to debt use in your response and attempted to take credit. Well, your CV is honest adequate to acknowledge that your dual achievements in bureau as Finance apportion underneath Obasanjo were that “you led a Nigerian group that struck a understanding with a Paris Club” and that we “introduced a use of edition any state’s monthly financial allocation in a newspapers”. You are right about a dual achievements. Let me put on record that Nigeria would have cumulative debt use underneath anyone as Minister of Finance. President Obasanjo cumulative debt use for Nigeria. Much of his initial tenure was used to get Nigeria behind into a general village and to discuss for debt relief. Before we were sworn in as Minister of Finance, President Bush visited Nigeria and both of us accompanied President Obasanjo during a meeting. There, Mr. Bush betrothed to support Nigeria with debt use and asked a boss to safeguard that he met a conditions of a Paris Club. Obasanjo mobilized a tellurian domestic support and concurrent all of us to safeguard that a organisation met a check-list of ‘conditionalities’ as required. we spent 5 weeks in a hotel with my group (as coordinator/chairman for drafting a National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy, NEEDS).
Some of a remodel targets in NEEDS became a ‘conditionalities’ Nigeria was compulsory to do to consequence debt relief. You and we sealed a several MoU with a IMF on seductiveness of Nigeria (the routine support instrument). We had a good group during work and any member of a mercantile group had specific aspects of a conditionalities to deliver: Bode Agusto was in-charge of a budget; Oby Ezekwesili hold lean during Bureau of Public Procurement and after Minister of Solid Mineral, and Education (but privately tasked with delivering on EITI and buying reforms); Nuhu Ribadu was during a EFCC fighting corruption; we was during a Central Bank delivering on financial routine and banking reforms; Steve Oronsaye worked tough to delist Nigeria from a FATF; Nenadi Usman was in-charge of a parastatals; El-Rufai hold onward during FCT and in assign of open zone reforms; privatization programme went on, etc. Did we know that a IMF wrote President Obasanjo melancholy that there would be no debt use if a CBN did not accommodate some financial targets, and do we know a sorcery we achieved to accommodate them? Can we tell Nigerians that of a ‘conditionalities’ that we privately implemented? With a groundswell of domestic support and Nigeria assembly all a ‘conditionalities’, debt use was assured.
Your vital purpose as settled in your CV was to lead a group to negotiate a specific terms of a relief, carrying over a conditions. we still trust that Nigeria should have gotten apart improved terms than we negotiated. Of course, with your eyes on returning to a World Bank after office, we did not design we to resolutely mount adult to a donor village in counterclaim of Nigeria. Was there a dispute of seductiveness on your part?
By a way, can we tell Nigerians since we were eased out as Finance Minister and we cried like a baby vagrant OBJ to still concede we sojourn in a Economic Management team—- hardly few weeks after a debt relief? Why were we eventually also private from a mercantile supervision group if we were so important? Ironically, President Jonathan has recycled you, with a bigger pretension and larger responsibilities. But a disproportion is that a group that did a tangible work is no longer there, and a universe has seen that a aristocrat is naked.
You are shining Madam, though we need vicious help. Having spent all your life in a World Bank bureaucracy mostly in administration/operations, no one will censure we if your economics has turn a bit rusty. There are firebrand Nigerians all over a universe to breeze to service. It is positively annoying to Nigeria for we to be bothering World Bank economists to assistance we with many simple mercantile analysis.
Your response on a misery emanate is deeply troubling. You credit me of regulating “2011 statistics on misery by a NBS to support his argument, while ignoring some-more new figures”. At slightest we did not rebut a NBS figure as valid. In a subsequent sentence, Madam went brazen to note that “as settled in a Nigeria Economic Report 2014 by a World Bank, misery in Nigeria has forsaken from 35.2 percent of race in 2010/2011 to 33.1 percent in 2012/2013”. Did we notice that we have quoted dual total for misery for a same year as being equally correct? So, for 2011, was misery 71% (according to NBS) or 35% according to a World Bank? To a best of my knowledge, a final published domicile consult by NBS was in 2011. The World Bank does not control domicile surveys in member states to establish misery incidence. So, when and by whom was a consult that gave a World Bank figures?
What worries me is that this organisation is a initial in a story to try to manipulate a inhabitant statistics underneath Okonjo-Iweala. When NBS published a misery total in 2011, she felt indicted and incensed. She called on a World Bank to come and inspect a ‘methodology’ and get NBS to ‘review’ a numbers. Oby Ezekwesili (as VP Africa Region deserted a call to try to breach with a country’s statistics). Once Oby left, a ‘World Bank’ started articulate about ‘new figures’, though conducting any new surveys. we was told about it by a World Bank economist, and we cautioned that it was a dangerous play that would repairs a credit of a NBS. If we wish to ‘review methodology’, we control another consult though we can’t change ‘methodology’ given we don’t like a published figures. No organisation in a story has attempted it: even Sani Abacha authorised a misery consult that put misery during 67% underneath his regime. At this rate, who will trust statistics entrance from a Nigerian organisation again? Is it now a World Bank that sits in Washington and allocates misery numbers to Nigeria? Something smells here!
Madam alleges that a NBS—as a parastatal underneath a National Planning Commission (under me) over from a ‘international customary process of misery measurement’. How and when, Madam? we was in bureau during National Planning for 11 months from Jul 2003 to May 2004. A misery consult was conducted in 2004 and a formula computed and published in 2005/2006— some-more than a year after we had left to a Central Bank. Or perhaps, it was a crafty approach to obstruct courtesy from your strategy of published mercantile statistics. The NBS published a misery information in 2006 when we were Minister of Finance, and we did not doubt a ‘methodology’ given a total looked good. In 2011, a misery numbers (using a same methodology as in 2005/2006) indicted a organisation and suddenly, a ‘methodology’ is wrong. Interesting times!
Now that we confirm that mercantile statistics published by NBS to accept and that ones to ‘change a methodology’ to give enlightened figures, we can keep feeding your manipulated total to your general media playground for a vain stately awards to means an dull hype, while Nigerians plaint underneath hardship. We can indeed ask Nigerians either they are removing improved off now discordant to your fraudulent figures.
Many of Madam’s responses were comical, though this one is classic. According to her, a arch mercantile confidant and NBS “worked tough to establish how many jobs we need to emanate in a year”, and went on to ask, “why didn’t Soludo do this when he was CEA?” (Lol!). Madam, any good economist needs reduction than 10 mins to discriminate this figure, not a (months? of) ‘hard work’ by your team. My calculation is that a series of jobs Nigeria needs to emanate any year to significantly revoke stagnation rate to tolerable levels in a subsequent few years is during slightest 3 million, and not a 1.8 million by your team. We are articulate about a Nigerian economy, please.
Your sorcery wand for mass housing is a Mortgage Refinance Corporation with 23,000 debt offers—for a nation with 17 million housing deficit! Then, there is a walking offer of a new growth bank— financed with loans from a World Bank, etc? A World Bank loan to set adult another ‘development bank’ where we already have Bank of Industry, Bank of Agriculture, NEXIM, Federal Mortgage Bank, etc? People have totally run out of ideas and can’t see anything for Nigeria though by a prism of a World Bank. we will offer we giveaway consultancy on how to set adult a growth bank though a World Bank loan though we don’t need another one now. we indeed gave President Yar’adua a dual page note for a N3 trillion growth comment then, and if we block your leaking pipes, it could indeed be a N10 trillion Fund. we envisioned and set adult a Africa Finance Corporation (AFC)—Africa’s premier infrastructure bank!
Frankly, we don’t know since we seem rarely uneasy that a Soludo we suspicion had “disappeared from a domestic space” seems to be still around. Well, let me assure we that we will usually ‘disappear’ in God’s possess time. we gave credit to dual past presidents who laid a substructure of a marketplace economy we work today. You did not competition or protest any of my points. Rather, what we see is that Soludo contingency be ‘looking for a position’. Pity! If we am looking for a position, we would be regulating around one of a possibilities now usually as we are bustling dancing Atilogwu dance during TAN and PDP rallies, struggling to keep your job. How Yar’adua drafted me to competition for administrator in Anambra and APGA care as good and how we was “stopped” on both occasions are in a open domain. But we am not deterred for one minute. Chinua Achebe pronounced that on leadership, Nigeria is a nation that goes for a football compare with a 10th Eleven. we am unapproachable and happy to have offering to offer my people, and for a use of Nigeria, we will do it again and again. How many times did Abraham Lincoln, Obama, Reagan, etc competition before they got there? we indeed inspire everybody who believes he/she has something to offer to get concerned or stop complaining. we am happy saying a augmenting vicious mass of professionals (like you) now removing involved. It is good for Nigeria!
What is during seductiveness is a presence and wealth of Nigeria. Next elections are critical, and for me a pivotal is a ECONOMY. We contingency offer Nigerians clarity on a choices before them. Can we introduce a three-way plead with we (representing PDP/Federal Government), hopeful of APC (Utomi or Fayemi? or any other), and myself (as eccentric citizen— we don’t go to any of a two). Let us have dual bouts of plead between now and 12th February, 2015 focusing on: CBN/AMCON and a financial complement (if we want); a economy and a outlook, and agenda/alternative paths to tolerable wealth post elections. Choose a dates and times, and for a effect of Nigeria, we will fly in. You can entice any of your general media friends as moderators. we feel a pain of a 180 million Nigerians whose tomorrow we have weakly rendered bleak, and when we consider of what a blank trillions could do for them, it becomes intensely obligatory that we all contingency lower a debate. Eagerly watchful for your response, please!
About Wana
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