Former aide to ex-president Goodluck
Jonathan, Reno Omokri has advised President Muhammadu Buhari against selling
national assets to get Nigeria out of the current recession.Just on Wednesday the 28th of
September, 2016, the World Economic Forum released its Global Competitiveness
Report and whereas a number of African nations like Kenya (of whom we are very
quick to compare ourselves positively) improved in the Global Competitiveness
Index rankings, Nigeria slipped three places and is now ranked 127 out of 138
nations.
To put it murky, only 11 nations
(many of them war torn) are worse than Nigeria in terms of doing business! Two
years ago Nigeria was Africa's fastest growing economy. Today, she does not
even feature in Africa's top ten most competitive nations! But when you point
these out, the response is to blame Goodluck Jonathan under whom our economy
blossomed like never before.
When you waste 16 months playing the
blame game should you be surprised that investors are playing the disappearing
game and running away from your economy?
And what has been the result? A
recession. Now, the thing is that rather than face the recession frontally and
ideate on how to end it, their administration, characteristically, has only one
response: Blame Jonathan! As my Warri peeps would say-una no dey tire!
Today, the Naira has exactly half
the value it had when former President Jonathan handed over power to President
Buhari yet we have not gotten to half of this administration's first tenure!
If there is anything you should not
be doing during a recession it is complaining. Recessions bow to solutions not
complaints! But I do apologize. It is not exactly true that thus administration
has not come up with a solution. It has. Sell of our national assets!
If I say that I was astounded by the
news that the Muhammadu Buhari administration is toying with the idea of
selling off Nigeria's national assets, I could probably qualify for a place in
the Guinness Book of Records for understatement of the year!
Nigeria is going through her
toughest recession ever and the government's response is the intellectually
lazy one of selling our national assets! Somebody pinch me because I may as
well be in a dream. I take that back. A nightmare this is!
First of all those in government
need to understand that it is unwise thing to sell your assets in a
recession because you will not get value for it. It is like selling your house
while the real estate market is down. The only type of buyers you are going to
attract are exploiters and shysters!
Of course a man like Aliko Dangote would advise
government to sell its assets. Mr. Dangote did not become the richest African
by being nice! I have met him in the flesh. He became the richest Black man in
the world by being shrewd! And ever since the Buhari economy reduced his wealth
by about $3.5 billion and removed him from Forbes Top 100 richest people in the
world.(Story Continues in Volume II)
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