No Prosperous Year In View For 2020

By Dele Sobowale

“Government is not a debating club. There is one leader of the orchestra.”

Alain Juppe, French Prime Minister, August 1995.

VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, VBQ, p 79.

Farewell before farewell.

I started writing commentaries on the Business and Economic pages of VANGUARD in 1987 before adding the SUNDAY VANGUARD articles in 1994. Most of those writing then are long gone – mostly beyond reach of humans.

My great Aburo, Henry Boyo, Old Igbobian like me, followed them just as 2019 was coming to an end. One feels increasingly alone and perhaps the time has come to pass the baton to a new generation of public opinion leaders. I had an MRI on December 26, 2019 and the signs are not very good. I should probably have saved the N78000 it cost me to drink GULDER and GUINNESS stout and have a good time before going the way of all humans.

In the 32 years since the first article started under MARKETFACTS on Mondays, I have been involved in virtually all the major macro-economic controversies of our era without fear or favour. As we proceed into 2020, let me remind those too young to know and those too old to recollect that I took on professors, politicians and pastors and beat them all. Let me mention a few.

Twice in the middle to late 1990s, against all odds, I predicted Capital Market crash and Banking crisis. In one article, I listed seventeen banks certain to fail. All did plus two others not included. The Nigerian Stock Exchange came as predicted also.

The Abacha era Failed Bank Decree followed. It was also the period when sycophants persuaded Babangida that Housing, Health, Education, Water for all Nigerians were possible by 2000. I raised objections in a three-part article pointing out why it was a pipe dream. Less than two million kids were out of school in 1988. Today 13 million are roaming the streets.

VISION 2010 and 2020 followed. But, you already know the result of that one. All the professors, ministers, politicians who promoted the idea now hide their faces when we meet at airports or other functions.

Finally, all the efforts to get Professor Soludo and Dr Ndidi Oyiunke to slow down on the introduction of Banking Consolidation fell on deaf ears. Today AMCON is sitting on over N5 trillion toxic loans – a monument to another battle won. In May last year, President Buhari, after signing the Minimum Wage Bill ordered immediate implementation. Organised Labour opened champagne bottles and got set to receive the bonanza from last May.

I wrote on these pages that Buhari spoke in vain. Nobody would get paid with immediate effect. We are in January 2020 and we all know where things stand. Labor is still threatening the Governors…

It has not all been negative, however. Every month I open the pages of newspapers and read how many billions of naira were collected on account of the Value Added Tax, VAT, and distributed among the three tiers of government, I feel very happy.

I order two bottles of beer – one for me and the other for Dr Kalu Idika Kalu, KIK, who was the promoter of VAT during the Babangida regime. Kalu was ably supported by Dr Chu S P Okongwu, Chief Olu Falae, Professor Jubril Aminu, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi and Alhaji Abubakar Alhaji (Triple A) – and of course IBB himself who had the courage to accept the proposal and to pass the VAT Decree.

The supporters were in a distinct minority but I joined them. It was the right proposal and at the right time. Sound Economics is not a matter for majority decision. I visited the first Director General of VAT, Alhaji Zukogi in his office shortly after and predicted that VAT which was expected to rake in N5-6 billion the next year will eventually bring in at least N60 billion per annum. The fellow must have thought he was talking to a lunatic.

In 2019, VAT yielded almost N1 trillion while the nation’s four refineries lost about N150 billion. Organised Labour and socialist economic illiterates want VAT scrapped and refineries maintained. Obviously, common sense is not common. KIK deserves a monument in every state capital in Nigeria. I am proud to be associated with that success story in Nigeria. There were others; but one is enough. There is still some time left for recollections.

Now looking forward to 2020 one can read all the signs of grave problems which can be summarised in two inevitable events. First, the 2020 Budget signed into law promised GDP growth lower than projected population growth. That document has already promised us per capita income lower than what we now have.

Furthermore, the average Nigerian is now poorer than he was in 2013. At the end of 2020 we will be poorer than we were in 2012. Buhari did not mention that in his budget address. It would have been too embarrassing to admit that you are leading the people deeper into poverty.

Second, the $30 billion loan request will certainly be granted. That means each Nigerian will have N495,000 added to his own share of the national debt burden. Yet, nothing in the budget reveals how the burden will be relieved.

Put together, the picture that emerges is an increasingly impoverished citizenry who must bear additional debt burden. And, there is no hope. Readers should return to the top and read what the French Prime Minister said years ago. A government is only as good as the leader of government. 

If Buhari attends a meeting of world leaders anytime soon, he might sit side by side with two young ladies, young enough to be his grand-daughters, but representing nations that are more advanced and more highly regarded than Nigeria. People will listen politely to Buhari but more seriously to the young ladies. They lead their countries because they are current with most of the major global issues of our time.

Modern leaders read voraciously and they don’t appoint fools because they are the “people I can trust”.  Effective leaders work with competent people irrespective of where they come from. For them, it is results that count. But, not here in Nigeria. Here, an incompetent Minister is retained for his loyalty irrespective of what he does to the rest of Nigeria.

AS POWER GOES SO GOES NIGERIA.

On May 29 2015, newly-elected President Buhari announced in his inaugural address that Nigeria a nation of 180 million people was generating and distributing only 4000MW of power. This he told us “is unacceptable”. By December 29, 2019, the same Buhari had been in office had been in office for four years and seven months. For the first five days of January 2020 the power supply to three of my residences in Nigeria was zero. Meanwhile, the population of Nigeria had risen to 200 million. Buhari no longer talks about power and nobody had been sacked. That is all you need to know about why Nigeria has no hope in 2020 and for as long as we operate under the same leadership.

POSER

By 2023 when Buhari would have completed another term, nearly 20 million more Nigerians would have been added to the masses living below the poverty line. Almost 75 per cent or 15 million will be Northerners. Why is Buhari creating so any more millions among his own people? Is it out of love for them?

NOTE: The books are available at CSS Bookshops, VANGUARD Abuja Office and MM2 as well as GATT Aviation airports in Lagos.  www.delesobowale.com

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