Dr. Titus Okunronmu is a former Director, Budgetary Department, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). In this interview with Charles Oknoji, he advises government to place more priority on agricultural development rather than focusing on oil. Excerpts:
“God has given us an economy that can keep us well and sound, but our problem is poor management which is the poor governance of the country. The first is that the four refineries are not working and we are exporting our crude oil, and we depend so much on what price the international market price is. Since America stop importing Nigerian crude, we have lost 40% of our revenue, and that affected the price, which came down, and it is not likely to rise quickly.
If we refine our petroleum product today, Nigeria would stop exporting crude oil, and the whole world would start buying our refined petroleum products, and they would have no choice immediately we don’t export a barrel, the whole world would be begging to buy from Nigeria its refined petroleum products, so we would earning foreign exchange instead of borrowing to finance the economy. So, once the refineries are working, Nigeria’s refined petroleum products would be sold all over the world.
The government should also look at developing the agriculture sector beyond what it is today. They should look into the establishment of farm lands, and also looking into mechanization of agriculture, because this will help generate the needed foreign exchange. But if we want to continue to live in recession by continuing to export crude oil, and to be importing refined petroleum products from abroad, congratulations.
Again, industry cannot grow where there is no constant power supply. Presently, anyone doing business in Nigeria that wants succeed, must have one or two generating sets. But there is no place in the whole world where they depend on generator; it is only in Nigeria that can see such. But God has given us four major sources of power that we do not need to have a generator that is making noise.
Again, when we export the crude oil, we flair the gas that comes with it, but the scientist told us that the gas we are flaring is sufficient to generate power for the whole of Africa, yet we are living in darkness.
Secondly, china has about 1.7 billion population, they have no crude oil, but they have coal, which is the main source power for the Chinese economy. Nigeria has enormous coal deposit as I was thought when I was in primary school, but we are not using that coal to generate power.
We have the sun, which is solar energy, better that Europe that has cold, but we do not want to utilize it. We have not harnessed and commercialised it. That is why the common people will tell you that solar is not cheap.
The fourth one is the only one we are depending upon, which is the hydro energy, and it depends on the dams that have been constructed over thirty years ago. As you know, the maintenance culture of Nigeria is very poor. That is why you have stable power during the rainy season when the volume of water is high, and in the dry season, the water would not be there.
So, if God is so generous to a country like ours to have given us four major sources of energy and we are not able to maintain it, then, something is wrong somewhere and we need to examine ourselves.
So, if they want to get the economy back the on track, they should borrow money and fix the refineries, and develop plans to pay back such loan within five years. They should also make power available so that any business can thrive. Companies would produce at a lower cost when they do not use generators, and the products would be cheaper.
We have iron ore deposit in Nigeria, but the iron ore industry is not developed. We export the iron ore in the primary stage and turnaround to import iron rods for our construction.
