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1. I read some of the responses to my
article, “Buhari vs Jonathan: Beyond the Election”, and I want to thank
everyone who has contributed to the debate. I am glad that the debate
has finally taken off. I have decided, for the record, to re-enter the
debate if only to set some records straight and hopefully elevate the
debate further. Whom do I respond to? First, let me thank Gov Kayode Fayemi for his very mature and professional response on behalf of the APC. It forms a great basis for deepening the conversation. Pat Utomi, Oby Ezekwesili, Iyabo Obasanjo, and thousands of other patriotic Nigerians have raised the content of the debate. Femi Fani-Kayode made me laugh, as usual. The Gov. Jang faction of the Governors’ Forum played the usual politics, although I know what most of them think privately. Who else? Oh, Peter Obi.
Well, since he can’t write and designated Valentine as usual to write
for him (who never disputed the NBS statistics that Obi broke world
record in the pauperization of Anambra people but instead focused on
lies and abuses) I won’t dignify him with a response here. His third
class performance in Anambra will be the subject of a comprehensive
article later.
2. Here, I will focus on Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s
response (as Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the
Economy—CME and hence on behalf of the Federal Government). Since I have
known her, out of deep respect, I have never called her by her name: I
call her Madam. I must state that I have great pains seeing myself on
the opposite side of the table with Madam, in this way. I respect you,
Madam, and will always do. If you read my article of September 2010
(before you became Minister), the tone and elucidation were as strong as
the current one. It is my honest effort to ensure that our choice of
leaders is based on rigorous scrutiny of what is on offer. Part of my
frustration is that five years after, everything I warned about has come
to happen and we are conducting our campaigns as if we are not in
crisis. As a concerned Nigerian, I have a duty to speak out again.
Regrettably, you have taken it very personal.
3. I am not bothered about the personal
abuses: I actually expected worse. What name has the government not
called President Obasanjo or any person who has dared to disagree with
it of late? Anyone who disagrees with the government must either be
‘insane’ or have a ‘character’ deficiency or must be ‘looking for a job’
or ‘without honour’, or a ‘charlatan’. Yesterday, Sanusi alleged that
$20 billion was missing and he was accused of gross financial
mismanagement, recklessness and poor governance to the point of being
the first governor of central bank to be suspended from office. Today,
he is the good one; and for daring to award an “F” grade for our
economic performance, Soludo has become the ‘worst’ and ‘without
character’ or perhaps ‘looking for position’ (Lol!). Some days ago, a
former president was called ‘a motor park tout’ and ‘un-statesmanly’
just for disagreeing. This “how dare you criticise us” mind-set of the
government is dangerous for our democracy.
4. In this Part One of my planned three
part series, I will restrict it to the main issues you raised. I will
not bother about the malicious attacks on my person. For me, it is
nothing personal. In early 2011, I had a similar heated exchange with
then Finance Minister Segun Aganga. But when the Nigerian economy was at
stake and he invited me to a stakeholders meeting in his office (as
Minister of Trade and Investment) to discuss Nigeria’s response to the
ruinous EU- Economic Partnership for Africa (EPA), I flew into Nigeria
for that (at my expense)— the first and only time I have been to any
government office to discuss policy since I left office. It is about
Nigeria. I will, as expected, remind people like you of the salient
aspects of my record of public service in response to your charge;
challenge your claim to debt relief, and your reason for not saving;
highlight your forgery of economic statistics and the lies in your
response; but most importantly re-focus our attention to the historic
mismanagement of our economy which you carefully avoided.
5. I will show that while you are
introducing austerity measures and soon to immiserate the citizens, our
public finance is haemorrhaging to the point that estimated over N30
trillion is missing or stolen or unaccounted for, or simply mismanaged—
under your watch! We can’t go on like this, and I am convinced that an
alternative future is possible. Can we have a public debate on this
alternative future? The issues at stake are too grave to be trivialized
through name calling. As I write, the naira exchange rate to the dollar
is at N215 (from N158 a few months ago) and unless oil price recovers,
this is just the beginning. For the sake of Nigeria, I won’t keep quiet
anymore!
6. Let me start with Madam’s rather
comical, wild judgment on my tenure of office which I believe to be
totally false and baseless. I apologise upfront that in the process of
making a ‘personal defence’, it is difficult to avoid a rather
uncomfortable emphasis on “I”. I did not want that but since Madam has
dragged us this low, I have little choice but to do so in the next few
paragraphs—just to keep the record straight!
7. In my view, there are three criteria
for evaluating a public officer’s stewardship: the evaluation by his
employer; the satisfaction of the public he served; and the hard facts
of performance. As I will show on these three counts, I am convinced
that I left a world record of public service, and a thousand
Okonjo-Iwealas cannot re-write that history. I served Nigeria under two
presidents (Obasanjo and Yar’Adua) and as my immediate bosses, below are
their written testimonials of my record.
8. Said President Obasanjo (December 2004):
“Charles Soludo is a true Nigerian. He
is the sort of Nigerian that we all know we can rely on. Among his
numerous virtues is COURAGE. I have found in him a man who can take
tough and realistic decisions, stand his ground, educate others on the
salience of his decision, and work very hard to ensure that the decision
is efficiently and effectively implemented. His dedication to duty is
first rate. His leadership qualities are admirable and his willingness
to listen and learn is simply infectious. Professor Soludo has within a
short time emerged as one of the leading lights of our nation. Not
because he has a godfather but by sheer hard work, loyalty, dedication
to duty, commitment to the nation, creativity, and undiluted association
with the reform agenda….”
9. President Yar’Adua (May 2009) had the following to say about the Central Bank of Nigeria under my leadership:
“… the CBN has performed creditably well
in delivering on its core mandates. This is especially even more so in
the last five years. Most people would agree that without the successful
banking consolidation and effective management of our foreign reserves,
the current global crisis would have shaken the financial system and
our national economy to their foundations with calamitous consequences”.
In the President’s special letter of
commendation after the completion of my tenure of office, President
Yar’Adua (June 2009) had the following to say to me:
“As your tenure as Governor of the
Central Bank of Nigeria comes to a glorious end, I write on behalf of
the Government and people of Nigeria to place on record our debt of
gratitude to you for your dedicated service and uncommon sense of duty
over the past five years. I am confident that your worthy antecedents in
the CBN and in prior appointments in the service of our nation remain
sources of inspiration to an entire generation. As I wish you even more
astounding successes in the years ahead, it is my fervent hope that you
will readily avail us of your distinguished service when the need arises
in the future”.
11. To the best of my knowledge, President Obasanjo
has not changed those views even after ten years. The views of my two
bosses, not the emotional outburst of an angry person desperate to get
even, are what count.
12. How did Nigerians evaluate my public
service? Unfortunately, we do not have scientific opinion polls on job
approval ratings for individual public officers. But if the public
opinions of individuals and organized groups (labour, employers,
depositors, borrowers, stakeholders of the financial institutions,
newspaper editorials, investors, etc) as expressed in thousands of
newspaper/magazine clips during and after my tenure are anything to go
by, then 82% of the public largely agree with the sentiments expressed
by my two bosses. Your views belong to the other 18% which is okay,
after all, no one is perfect.
13. Five Nigerian newspapers and
magazines simultaneously named us “man of the year” in one year—
unprecedented in Nigeria’s history. I do not talk about hundreds of
awards and recognitions by various segments of our society (during and
even after service) for “excellent public service”. I was particularly
touched by the historic award by the staff union of the Central Bank and
the tears in the eyes of many as thousands of the staff gave me a
standing ovation as I walked the aisle after my brief farewell speech.
14. Certainly, the international
community (investors, bankers, scholars, donors, media, etc) took
serious notice of the revolution in Nigeria’s monetary and financial
system. I am recipient of five international awards as global and
African central bank governor of the year, not to mention dozens of
other recognitions (even after leaving office). The London Financial
Times described us as “a great reformer”. Even as the global economic
and financial crisis raged in 2008, the United Nations General Assembly
appointed me to serve on the Commission of Experts to reform the
international monetary and financial system. You don’t appoint someone
who has ‘mismanaged’ his national financial system to reform the global
system.
15. For 8 years until 2012, I served on
the chief economist advisory council (CEAC) of the World Bank, and
together with two Nobel Prize winners in economics and other experts we
met periodically and advised two presidents and two chief economists of
the World Bank, and in 2011, I served on the External Advisory Group of
the IMF. Again, these are not positions for ‘mis-managers’. Since I
left office, I have been advising countries and central banks; and there
is hardly any two months I don’t consult/advise on banking/financial
and monetary policy. I have given these illustrations to make the point
that for every one Okonjo-Iweala’s attempt to rewrite history, there are
thousands who disagree.
16. Now, to some skeletal facts of our
stewardship! I will be brief as I have a whole book to tell my story. As
chief economic adviser, I had advised that our banking system could not
support the private sector-led economy envisioned under NEEDS. When I
assumed office at CBN, I inherited 89 rickety, mostly family banks (all
of which put together were not up to the size of number four bank in
South Africa). Many were insolvent, with depositors’ money trapped, and
20 more about to collapse. To get a credit of $300 million probably
required all the banks to syndicate it. For me, there was a national
emergency. I drafted a 13-point reform agenda, discussed and agreed all
the specifics with the President, and his VP; as well as my management
team at the CBN, and we swung into action. President Obasanjo promised
100% support and actually delivered 1000%— which was decisive. I
apologize to you Madam because I did not brief or inform you about it.
We just wanted to keep it confidential given the sensitivity of the
announcement. It is on record that you never supported it.
17. It was both a revolution and a war
and most people thought it was “impossible”, but thank God we succeeded.
For the first time in Nigeria’s history a policy of that magnitude was
announced and deadline kept with precision. We were courageous to
revoke the licenses of 14 banks, including those of my friends, in one
day. The FT-Banker concluded that the scale, precision, and cost of the
transformation were unprecedented in the world. Before then, Malaysia
had the least cost of banking consolidation at 5% of Malaysian GDP. It
did not cost Nigerian taxpayers one penny.
18. Twenty-five new, stronger banks
emerged but the powerful idea behind consolidation ignited something
even more powerful—‘the race to the top’. Banks raised more capital, and
even banks like First Bank, Zenith, GTB, etc that did not merge with
others went on capital raising several times. The consequence was higher
levels of capitalization and within two years, 14 Nigerian banks were
in the top 1000 banks in the world and two in the top 300 (no Nigerian
bank was in the top 1000 before I came). Even after I left office, still
9 banks were in the top 1000. Our vision was to have a Nigerian bank in
the top 100 banks within 10 years. As I see the new Access bank;
Zenith, GTB, Fidelity, Diamond, UBA, FBN, FCMB, Skye, Stanbic IBTC,
Union, Ecobank, etc, I cannot but feel that we have taken giant steps
forward.
19. Deposits and credit soared (from
barely 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 major operator in the Nigerian economy their experience
with banking and credit before and after Soludo —the Dangotes, Arik,
MM2, oil and gas operators; etc); capital market boomed and dominated by
the banking sector. It was a new dawn for Nigerian private sector. I
have heard Dangote twice say that he would not be near as big as he is
today without the banking consolidation. Many other stakeholders still
say it today. FDI and portfolio inflows flooded into Nigeria. The world
celebrated, and one single transformative idea has changed the face of
the private sector and economy forever. Banks became Nigeria’s first
transnational corporations with about 37 branches outside of Nigeria.
20. Nigeria survived the global crisis
because of this, and it is the banking sector that has largely been
powering the economic growth you claim (compare banks trillions of naira
credit for investments in the productive sector with your government’s
miserable expenditure on critical infrastructure and investment; much of
your borrowing – bonds – is from the banks). Your privatization of
power sector, several PPP projects on infrastructure, etc, are now
possible because of the mega banks.
21. Today, Nigerian banks syndicate
multi-billion dollar loans— unthinkable before. Madam, if the
consolidation was ‘mismanaged’, there would not have been any bank to
start with in the aftermath of the global crisis— as President Yar’adua
correctly pointed out. Even you, during a recent presentation at the
Banquet Hall in Abuja advertised consolidation as a historic
achievement. How can you recognize a ‘mis-managed’ project as an
outstanding achievement? As we say in Igbo, you can’t cover the moon
with your palms.
22. Let me be clear: the quantum size of
the new banks following consolidation presented challenges of risk
management and supervision. We deployed all we had and overworked the
CBN staff. The carry-over of bad loans from the consolidated banks was
quickly cleaned up. To the best of my knowledge, we instituted stringent
regulatory and supervisory regime (consistent with best practices at
the time). We even had resident examiners in the banks and required bank
MDs to personally sign their reports to CBN. I recall that the former
MD of GTB complained of “regulatory intrusiveness”.
23. To our credit, non-performing loans
(NPL) came down from 22% in 2003 and 2004 to 6% as at 2008. Anywhere in
the world, a central bank that brought NPL from 22% to 6% over a four
year period does not look like one with a loose supervisory regime. Name
other developing countries that performed better, Madam. So, on point
of fact, Madam lied. Yours was a reckless assertion without basis by a
Finance Minister.
24. The banks in Nigeria were supervised
by the CBN and NDIC, but other institutions— international firms which
audited them, international rating agencies which also examined their
books, capital market operators since most were listed companies — all
had oversight. I put on record that there was never any
information/report of infractions by any bank which was brought to my
attention and which we did not act upon decisively during my tenure. I
heard the comment that some of the bank MDs were my friends.
25. Well, my response is that perhaps as
CME you should kill all your friends operating in the economy or become
their enemies. For the record, my successor audited all the banks and
none of my so-called friends was indicted. It speaks volumes. Indeed, it
is also a fact that the alleged personal criminal infractions
(including lapses in corporate governance Madam alluded to) by some bank
CEOs were found out, only AFTER they had been removed from office.
26. My successor told me that the
comprehensive audit of the banks did not reveal such infractions. Of
course, you must be God or have a special tip-off from inside to get to
such information while the MDs are in office. Unfortunately, all over
the world, no financial system has succeeded in routing out all criminal
behaviours by the operators. So, Madam, I challenge you to provide one
shred of evidence that ‘there was no separation between regulators and
regulated’ or be honourable enough to retract your reckless statement.
27. What happened? The unanticipated and
unprecedented crisis of 2008/09 hit the world. More than 40 US and
European banks either collapsed or were shaken badly (remember the
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 contagion effects spread like a
wild fire, destroying national stock markets and banks. The nascent
(big) banks in Nigeria faced sudden multiple shocks— liquidity, exchange
rate, oil price, capital market, etc.
28. As oil prices collapsed, loans to
oil and gas became non-performing overnight; loans to the capital market
became non-performing overnight; etc. Our first priority was to save
the entire banking system and the economy from systemic collapse. I
assured Nigerians that no bank would be allowed to fail, and not many
people know what it took to achieve it. Once we had navigated through
the unexpected /unprecedented turbulence, we laid out a comprehensive
plan to clean up the debris which we presented to stakeholders in Lagos
(March 2009). I had pleaded with the Senate to pass the AMCON bill which
we sent to them in 2004. But I had a comprehensive plan to finish the
clean-up with or without AMCON by the end of 2009, including second
round consolidation and a N500 billion fund (my book will detail all
these). I left behind an 11-volume document of the Financial System
Strategy 2020 (FSS2020) which has remained the policy roadmap for the
CBN/financial sector since I left office.
29. I have two analogies for our
experience. Ours was really like an airplane that was cruising and
suddenly meets an unexpected and unprecedented turbulence. After the
pilots and the crew succeed in navigating through the potential crash
and probably land the airplane, people look in and start blaming the
crew for the broken tea cups, chairs, and drinks that fell during the
turbulence as evidence that the crew never kept the airplane clean or
serviced it. My second analogy is that of a sudden earthquake in a
region it was never expected and some houses collapsed. All of a sudden,
the housing authority is to blame for not requiring earthquake-proof
foundations for the houses. Well, my legal experts call it force
majeure, an act of nature!
30. To be fair, after every crisis,
there are lessons (and my book will detail what, with benefit of that
experience, we should have done differently). Risk management— which has
always been there— now took a new centre stage all over the world
following the crisis. But for anyone to suggest that CBN under me, for
one minute, took its eyes off the ball is, to say the least, ludicrous.
The US financial system literally crippled the world costing America
hundreds of billions of dollars but no one has suggested that Alan
Greenspan is no longer the great maestro!
31. AMCON is a big topic (which I will
address at a later date) but her claims show either ignorance or
mischief. She claims that N5.7 trillion of AMCON funds was used to
rescue banks and the ‘bond issued’ as ‘cost to taxpayers’. Really? I
will deal with the AMCON I envisaged and the AMCON under you later but
let me state that even if 100% of the banks’ NPL was offloaded on AMCON,
it would not be up to N5.7 trillion. Enough said for now. The fact is
that the Federal Government has not put a penny in the AMCON fund: the
banking system is financing itself, and together with the sinking fund
by banks, AMCON surely can’t default (thanks to consolidation that the
banks are now big enough to cough out such funds to solve the system’s
problem). Did you intend to deceive the readers by refusing to tell them
that much of the AMCON fund is ‘investment’ and not ‘expense’. Am sure
you heard the IMF’s alarm about moral hazard? If you want, we can have a
focused debate on AMCON.
32. Next, let me briefly respond to a
few outlandish claims. She brags about ‘single-digit’ inflation rate
‘now’ and alleges that when I left office, inflation was above 13%. I
just laughed at this one. In Nigeria’s history, no governor of the
Central Bank has delivered 24 consecutive months of single digit
inflation as I did until the advent of the unprecedented global crisis
in 2008. It was not for nothing that the world cheered us as monetary
policy czar, Madam! Perhaps you are also not aware that we broke a world
record by having a depreciated real effective exchange rate during a
time of export boom and this was at the heart of our reserve
accumulation and the portfolio/FDI inflows.
33. I resisted the IMF advice to deplete
reserves for liquidity management, and Nigeria had enough
self-insurance to survive the global crisis. The opposite has happened
under you Madam, and the Nigerian economy is in trouble. Naira exchange
rate appreciated under me from N133 to N117 before the global crisis;
and reserves grew to all time high of $62 billion. For the first time
since 1986, the official, interbank and parallel market exchange rates
converged under me. You can’t match these records!
34. I hereby challenge your attempt to
blame others for not saving for the rainy day. It is not a virtue when
you are quick to appropriate all the credit when things are going well,
but shift the blame when they go wrong. You blame the state governors—
who, according to you, have taken the Federal Government to the Supreme
Court—not that a Supreme Court judgment forced your hands.
35. For your information, the governors
have never agreed to savings and always threatened court action even
under Obasanjo. Why did we save under Obasanjo but not under Jonathan?
Two keywords explain it: leadership and integrity. Governor Amaechi
said the governors insisted on sharing the funds because they found out
that you were illegally fiddling with the savings. So, as Nigerians
still wonder, if billions of dollars are now ‘missing’ under your nose,
why should governors trust you to keep their money?
36. Do the states that have taken the
federal government to the Supreme Court and refused to save also include
the PDP governors—who are in the majority? If so, then it is fatal:
even governors of your own party, PDP, do not trust you to keep their
money! Furthermore, did the governors also stop the Federal Government
from saving part of its share? If you ran a surplus budget at the
Federal level, you would have had credibility to blame others or to say
they did not listen to your advice. The key point is that since you were
running huge deficits yourself, it was also in your own interest to
share the ECA. You did not show leadership or credibility, full stop!
37. Next, Madam, I was really
embarrassed for you to read that one of the reasons for declining forex
reserves is ‘oil theft’. Under you as Minister of Finance and
coordinator of the economy, the basket of our national treasury is
leaking profusely from all sides. Just a few illustrations! First, you
admit that ‘oil theft’ has reduced oil output from the average 2.3 – 2.4
million barrels per day (mpd) to 1.95mpd (meaning that at least 350,000
to 450,000 barrels per day are being ‘stolen’. On the average of
400,000 per day and the oil prices over the past four years, it comes to
about $60 billion ‘stolen’ in just four years.
38. In today’s exchange rate, that is
about N12.6 trillion. This is at a time of cessation of crisis in the
Niger Delta and amnesty programme. Can you tell Nigerians how much the
amnesty programme costs, and also the annual cost for ‘protecting’ the
pipelines and security of oil wells? And the ‘thieves’ are spirits? Come
on, Madam!
39. Second, my earlier article stated
that the minimum forex reserves should have been at least $90 billion by
now and you did not challenge it. Rather it is about $30 billion,
meaning that gross mismanagement has denied the country some $60 billion
or another N12.6 trillion.
40. Now add the ‘missing’ $20 billion
from the NNPC. You promised a forensic audit report ‘soon’, and more
than a year later the Report itself is still ‘missing’. This is over N4
trillion, and we don’t know how much more has ‘missed’ since Sanusi
cried out. How many trillions of naira were paid for oil subsidy
(unappropriated?). How many trillions (in actual fact) have been ‘lost’
through customs duty waivers over the last four years? As coordinator
of the economy, can you tell Nigerians why the price of automotive gas
oil (AGO), popularly called diesel, has still not come down despite the
crash in global crude oil prices, and how much is being appropriated by
friends in the process? Be honest: do you really know (as coordinator
and minister of finance) how many trillions of Naira, self- financing
government agencies earn and spend? I have a long list but let me wait
for now. I do not want to talk about other ‘black pots’ that impinge on
national security.
41. My estimate, Madam, is that probably
more than N30 trillion has either been stolen or lost or unaccounted
for or simply mismanaged under your watchful eyes in the past four
years. Since you claim to be in charge, Nigerians are right to ask you
to account. Think about what this amount could mean for the 112 million
poor Nigerians or for our schools, hospitals, roads, etc. Soon, you will
start asking the citizens to pay this or that tax, while some faceless
“thieves” were pocketing over $40 million per day from oil alone.
42. You alluded to debt relief in your
response and tried to take credit. Well, your CV is honest enough to
admit that your two achievements in office as Finance minister under
Obasanjo were that “you led the Nigerian team that struck a deal with
the Paris Club” and that you “introduced the practice of publishing each
state’s monthly financial allocation in the newspapers”. You are right
about the two achievements. Let me put on record that Nigeria would have
secured debt relief under anyone as Minister of Finance. President
Obasanjo secured debt relief for Nigeria. Much of his first term was
used to get Nigeria back into the international community and to
campaign for debt relief. Before you were sworn in as Minister of
Finance, President Bush visited Nigeria and both of us accompanied
President Obasanjo during the meeting. There, Mr. Bush promised to
support Nigeria with debt relief and asked our president to ensure that
he met the conditions of the Paris Club. Obasanjo mobilized the global
political support and coordinated all of us to ensure that the
government met the check-list of ‘conditionalities’ as required. I
spent five weeks in the hotel with my team (as coordinator/chairman for
drafting the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy,
NEEDS).
43. Some of the reform targets in NEEDS
became the ‘conditionalities’ Nigeria was required to fulfil to merit
debt relief. You and I signed the various MoU with the IMF on behalf of
Nigeria (the policy support instrument). We had a great team at work and
each member of the economic team had specific aspects of the
conditionalities to deliver: Bode Agusto was in-charge of the budget;
Oby Ezekwesili held sway at Bureau of Public Procurement and later
Minister of Solid Mineral, and Education (but specifically tasked with
delivering on EITI and procurement reforms); Nuhu Ribadu was at the EFCC
fighting corruption; I was at the Central Bank delivering on monetary
policy and banking reforms; Steve Oronsaye worked hard to delist Nigeria
from the FATF; Nenadi Usman was in-charge of the parastatals; El-Rufai
held forth at FCT and in charge of public sector reforms; privatization
programme went on, etc. Did you know that the IMF wrote President
Obasanjo threatening that there would be no debt relief if the CBN did
not meet some monetary targets, and do you know the magic we performed
to meet them? Can you tell Nigerians which of the ‘conditionalities’
that you personally implemented? With the groundswell of political
support and Nigeria meeting all the ‘conditionalities’, debt relief was
assured.
44. Your major role as stated in your CV
was to lead the team to negotiate the specific terms of the relief,
having fulfilled the conditions. I still believe that Nigeria should
have gotten far better terms than you negotiated. Of course, with your
eyes on returning to the World Bank after office, I did not expect you
to boldly stand up to the donor community in defence of Nigeria. Was
there a conflict of interest on your part?
45. By the way, can you tell Nigerians
why you were eased out as Finance Minister and you cried like a baby
begging OBJ to still allow you remain in the Economic Management team—-
barely few weeks after the debt relief? Why were you eventually also
removed from the economic management team if you were so important?
Ironically, President Jonathan has recycled you, with a bigger title and
greater responsibilities. But the difference is that the team that did
the actual work is no longer there, and the world has seen that the king
is naked.
46. You are brilliant Madam, but you
need serious help. Having spent all your life in the World Bank
bureaucracy largely in administration/operations, no one will blame you
if your economics has become a bit rusty. There are firebrand Nigerians
all over the world to draft to service. It is certainly embarrassing to
Nigeria for you to be bothering World Bank economists to help you with
most basic economic analysis.
47. Your response on the poverty issue
is deeply troubling. You accuse me of using “2011 statistics on poverty
by the NBS to support his argument, while ignoring more recent figures”.
At least you did not refute the NBS figure as valid. In the next
sentence, Madam went ahead to note that “as stated in the Nigeria
Economic Report 2014 by the World Bank, poverty in Nigeria has dropped
from 35.2 percent of population in 2010/2011 to 33.1 percent in
2012/2013”. Did you notice that you have quoted two figures for poverty
for the same year as being equally correct? So, for 2011, was poverty
71% (according to NBS) or 35% according to the World Bank? To the best
of my knowledge, the last published household survey by NBS was in 2011.
The World Bank does not conduct household surveys in member states to
determine poverty incidence. So, when and by whom was the survey that
gave the World Bank figures?
48. What worries me is that this
government is the first in our history to attempt to manipulate our
national statistics under Okonjo-Iweala. When NBS published the poverty
figures in 2011, she felt indicted and incensed. She called upon the
World Bank to come and examine the ‘methodology’ and get NBS to ‘review’
its numbers. Oby Ezekwesili (as VP Africa Region rejected the call to
try to tamper with a country’s statistics). Once Oby left, the ‘World
Bank’ started talking about ‘new figures’, without conducting any new
surveys. I was told about it by a World Bank economist, and I cautioned
that it was a dangerous gamble that would damage the credibility of the
NBS. If you want to ‘review methodology’, you conduct another survey
but you can’t change ‘methodology’ because you don’t like the published
figures. No government in our history has tried it: even Sani Abacha
allowed a poverty survey that put poverty at 67% under his regime. At
this rate, who will believe statistics coming from the Nigerian
government again? Is it now the World Bank that sits in Washington and
allocates poverty numbers to Nigeria? Something smells here!
49. Madam alleges that the NBS—as a
parastatal under the National Planning Commission (under me) departed
from the ‘international standard method of poverty measurement’. How and
when, Madam? I was in office at National Planning for 11 months from
July 2003 to May 2004. A poverty survey was conducted in 2004 and the
results computed and published in 2005/2006— more than a year after I
had gone to the Central Bank. Or perhaps, it was a clever way to divert
attention from your manipulation of published economic statistics. The
NBS published its poverty data in 2006 when you were Minister of
Finance, and you did not question the ‘methodology’ because the figures
looked good. In 2011, the poverty numbers (using the same methodology as
in 2005/2006) indicted the government and suddenly, the ‘methodology’
is wrong. Interesting times!
50. Now that you decide which economic
statistics published by NBS to accept and which ones to ‘change the
methodology’ to give favourable figures, you can keep feeding your
manipulated figures to your international media circus for the vain
glorious awards to sustain an empty hype, while Nigerians groan under
hardship. We can actually ask Nigerians whether they are getting better
off now contrary to your bogus figures.
51. Many of Madam’s responses were
comical, but this one is classic. According to her, the chief economic
adviser and NBS “worked hard to determine how many jobs we need to
create in a year”, and went on to ask, “why didn’t Soludo do this when
he was CEA?” (Lol!). Madam, any good economist needs less than 10
minutes to compute this figure, not the (months? of) ‘hard work’ by your
team. My calculation is that the number of jobs Nigeria needs to create
each year to significantly reduce unemployment rate to sustainable
levels in the next few years is at least 3 million, and not the 1.8
million by your team. We are talking about the Nigerian economy, please.
52. Your magic wand for mass housing is
the Mortgage Refinance Corporation with 23,000 mortgage offers—for a
country with 17 million housing deficit! Then, there is the pedestrian
proposal of a new development bank— financed with loans from the World
Bank, etc? A World Bank loan to set up 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 without through the prism of the World Bank. I will
offer you free consultancy on how to set up a development bank without a
World Bank loan but we don’t need another one now. I actually gave
President Yar’adua a two page note for a N3 trillion development fund
then, and if we plug your leaking pipes, it could actually be a N10
trillion Fund. I envisioned and set up the Africa Finance Corporation
(AFC)—Africa’s premier infrastructure bank!
53. Frankly, I don’t understand why you
seem highly troubled that the Soludo you thought had “disappeared from
the political space” seems to be still around. Well, let me assure you
that I will only ‘disappear’ in God’s own time. I gave credit to two
past presidents who laid the foundation of the market economy we operate
today. You did not contest or contradict any of my points. Rather, what
you see is that Soludo must be ‘looking for a position’. Pity! If I am
looking for a position, I would be running around one of the candidates
now just as you are busy dancing Atilogwu dance at TAN and PDP rallies,
struggling to keep your job. How Yar’adua drafted me to contest for
governor in Anambra and APGA leadership as well and how I was “stopped”
on both occasions are in the public domain. But I am not deterred for
one minute. Chinua Achebe said that on leadership, Nigeria is a country that goes for a football match with its 10th Eleven.
54. I am proud and happy to have offered
to serve my people, and for the service of Nigeria, I will do it again
and again. How many times did Abraham Lincoln, Obama, Reagan, etc
contest before they got there? I actually encourage everyone who
believes he/she has something to offer to get involved or stop
complaining. I am happy seeing the increasing critical mass of
professionals (like you) now getting involved. It is good for Nigeria!
55. What is at stake is the survival and
prosperity of Nigeria. Next elections are critical, and for me the key
is the ECONOMY. We must offer Nigerians clarity on the choices before
them. Can I propose a three-way debate with you (representing
PDP/Federal Government), nominee of APC (Utomi or Fayemi? or any other),
and myself (as independent citizen— I don’t belong to any of the two).
Let us have two bouts of debate between now and 12th
February, 2015 focusing on: CBN/AMCON and the financial system (if you
want); our economy and its outlook, and agenda/alternative paths to
sustainable prosperity post elections. Choose the dates and times, and
for the sake of Nigeria, I will fly in. You can invite any of your
international media friends as moderators. I feel the pain of the 180
million Nigerians whose tomorrow you have carelessly rendered bleak, and
when I think of what the missing trillions could do for them, it
becomes extremely urgent that we all must deepen the debate. Eagerly
waiting for your response, please
2 comments:
when the wind blows, we will see the fowls nyash! u guys should keep busting ur a**se. all of u are so corrupt. Mr Soludo, so u didnt steal money at the CBN abi?
So Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is also involved in all the stealing. my goodness! Nigeria is really turning into something else o! I think we really need Buhari at this point in time in this nation. The corruption is so so deep now.
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