Are these ‘thieves’ spirits? Come on, Madam!
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.
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.
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.
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. 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!
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!
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.
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….”
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”.
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.
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. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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. 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.
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.
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. 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.
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”. 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.
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. 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. 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.
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. 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.
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!
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!
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.
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. 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!
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. 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? 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!
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. 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!
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.
Now add the
‘missing’ $20billion 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 N4trillion, 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.
My estimate, Madam, is that probably more than N30trillion 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.
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).
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
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!
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!
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.
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.
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!
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. 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!
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