Africa Press-Nigeria:<\/p>\n
Former Presidential Candidate, Atiku Abubakar has said that the Nigerian Government must abandon its 2020 budget and come up with a new one owing to falling oil prices in the wake of the Coronavirus Pandemic.<\/p>\n
His suggestion was contained in a statement sent to POLITICS NIGERIA on Tuesday. The statement read;<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore the novel coronavirus pandemic hit the globe, Nigeria spent 42% of her earnings on debt servicing. We have arrived at a new reality today: even if we devote 100% of our income to rebuilding our economy, it still will not be enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCOVID19 has wreaked such damage to the world\u2019s economy, and this is now very evident in the West. But we should not take solace in any false sense of security that nations like Nigeria are either immune to the vagaries of this plague or that we would not be as hard hit. The reason countries in the Western Hemisphere are reporting more significant numbers than developing nations is primarily due to the availability of testing and real-time information.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIgnorance is not bliss in this instance. We shall soon know the truth and, sadly, this truth will not set us free. It will shock us. Had we closed our ports of entry early, we would probably have had better reasons to be hopeful. However, the past is gone, but we must be proactive in going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Nigeria and other African nations are yet to see the worst of the effects of this scourge. That is why we should unite together and seek debt forgiveness, as a direct consequence of the impact of this pandemic on our economies.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we have a perfect case because almost every African nation with a COVID19 infestation had an index case that originated outside the continent. Nigeria\u2019s index case was Italian, Liberia\u2019s was Swiss. Ethiopia had a Japanese index. South Africa\u2019s index case was South African, but he and his family got infected in Italy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis crisis should force a commonality of purpose in Africa. And more so in Nigeria. This is beyond politics. Beyond religion. Beyond region. And beyond ethnicity. As crisis go, this one can be described as existential.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile it is true that in a situation like this, the international community should invest in all countries needing help, we must be mature enough to see that that is not going to happen. The only thing that is standing in the way of the coronavirus in Africa is ourselves. And we should not give in to panic by the doomsday scenarios being painted by analysts. They mean well, but if they only shout fire in a crowded theatre, all that their good intentions will cause is widespread panic.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe must remember that many of them had predicted that Nigeria would cease to exist as a corporate entity by 2015, but here we are.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had the Wild Ebola Virus, and we defeated it because we did not panic. We must apply that same level-headedness to this crisis. But this does not mean that we should go to the other extreme and become overly optimistic or pollyannaish.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEven when we are able to avoid a high human toll from this virus, we would not be able to escape a much higher economic toll. We may have a recession. The challenge right now must be to mitigate it, since we cannot avoid it. Already, we see forced currency devaluations from the Cape to Cairo. These will no doubt lead to internal inflation, which will spell trouble for nations like Nigeria, that have a high external dollar debt burden.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAlready, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa is projecting that Africa\u2019s growth will at least drop to 1.8%, and maybe more. Bear in mind that, thanks to nations like Rwanda, Ethiopia and Tanzania, we had been projected to grow 3.2% this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFaced with this crisis, Africa cannot even think of falling back on China, or the West. When a country like the US is struggling to supply its own healthcare workers with personal protective equipment, Africa will not feature high on its priority. Where China is wondering how to explain itself to the world when this dies down, our challenges will be far from their minds. We must fall back on ourselves, or we will fall headlong. We must take responsibility for navigating our way out of a challenge that was forced on us from outside the continent.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the time for every money made in Africa to stay in Africa. We have hospitals to build. We have economies to reboot. We have citizens to care for and return to work. We certainly should not be sending money out of Africa and into Asia and the West. Not now and not for the foreseeable future.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOil prices have crashed, and that by itself should not be enough to trigger a crisis. After all, the current price of oil was lower than it is today when President Obasanjo and I assumed office on May 29, 1999. Yet we paid off Nigeria\u2019s entire foreign debt.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, there are two remarkable differences. The first is that we had a stellar cabinet between 1999-2007. We had the right people manning our economy. We certainly would not have proposed to take out a $500 million loan to digitalise the Nigerian Television Authority, or devoted \u20a637 billion to renovating the National Assembly complex (which was built from the scratch at less than 20% of that amount).\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cToday\u2019s Nigerian government is severely lacking in qualified hands. And nothing proves this than the state of the Presidency itself. To think that after devoting \u20a613 billion to the State House Clinic in the last five years, it is virtually useless as we face the most significant public health challenge of our national life. That is a pointer to the state of our federal government.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe second and perhaps more important thing is that we did not have to deal with a worldwide pandemic of this extent (although we had the H5N1 incident).\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAs it stands today, the world is too preoccupied with its challenges to prioritise Africa, and so we have to prioritise ourselves. The issue of Nigeria wanting to borrow $6.9 billion at this time shows the almost delusory state of our government. No one has that type of money to throw about.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cChina and America, previously our two largest creditors, have taken hits to their economies to the tune of trillions of dollars. If they could, they would consider taking from us at this stage.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy is it that the Nigerian government is always quick to want to borrow at every instance? It shows a lazy mindset and an inability to take those sacrifices necessary to get the economy into shape. Worse still it proves that we do not, as of yet, have the ability to think outside the box for genuine solutions. We cannot be looking to borrow huge sums at the same time our officials are taking delivery of foreign made luxury cars. We cannot be considered a serious country when we refuse to cut down on profligacy and instead seek outside help to fund our inefficiencies.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEven in our own individual houses, when things get tight, the first thing we should do is cut down on unnecessary expenditure and then you look for creative ways to generate funds and develop our household economy, before we even seek outside funding. A situation where the Nigerian government always seeks outside funding, which, by the way has to be repaid if ever granted, displays an inadequacy in the thinking process of our leaders at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, other than asking for debt relief, what can we realistically do to protect ourselves from the type of economic collapse that could lead to social upheaval in Nigeria?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can start from where we have the most influence, the global oil industry. To save our economy, Nigeria must engage in immediate shuttle diplomacy to get Saudi Arabia and Russia to settle their differences and end the price war that is affecting the price of oil almost as much as the pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cartel is more vulnerable than Russia right now. Yes, Russia is also vulnerable, but so are we. Russia has an almost stable gas market in Europe. We do not. So we are much more vulnerable. This price war is not just affecting Nigeria and Angola badly, it is also affecting the valuation of ARAMCO and delaying vital decisions, which are troubling signs.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNigeria must bring her weight (like we had done in the past) to bear to force an early cessation of hostilities so that oil prices could start looking up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd secondly, we must insist that the Abacha loots held back by various Western governments must be immediately and unconditionally returned to Nigeria. We have a humanitarian crisis on our hands. I believe that President Trump is a reasonable man. He knows that if nothing is done to avoid the foreseeable dislocation of African economies, the next wave of mass migration to the United States would not be from Mexico.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe worst thing we can do now is to wring our hands and look to outsiders. Not now. The leadership in Abuja and the rest of Africa cannot afford to be lethargic while the rest of the world is scrambling to save what they can of their economies.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Nigeria, it is already clear that we must abandon the 2020 budget and come up with a more realistic budget. Our oil benchmark is way off the mark. And we are certainly no longer in a position to budget \u20a6100 billion plus for our legislatures and almost \u20a650 billion for the Presidency (in truth, we were never in a position to do that).\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Africa Press-Nigeria: Former Presidential Candidate, Atiku Abubakar has said that the Nigerian Government must abandon its 2020 budget and come up with a new one owing to falling oil prices in the wake of the Coronavirus Pandemic. His suggestion was contained in a statement sent to POLITICS NIGERIA on Tuesday. The statement read; \u201cBefore the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":12797,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,16],"tags":[316,65],"class_list":["post-23631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-parties","tag-atiku","tag-pdp"],"yoast_head":"\n