PDP: Poor handling of the economy caused recession, not Jonathan

Our attention has been drawn to the recent in­considerate statement attributed to the governor of Ji­gawa State Abubakar Badaru and other comments made by people who think like him, to the effect that the last People’s Dem­ocratic Party (PDP) Administra­tion was responsible for the cur­rent recession.

It is really disappointing that a notable personality as highly placed as a state governor could be drawn into making idle and pedestrian claims, without the benefit of facts. It is either he does not realize the obligation of speaking responsibly in that position, or he is grossly ill-in­formed, in which case we could only try to put the facts before him, hoping he would recog­nise them.

In the first place, this blame is misplaced because elementa­ry understanding of economics teaches one that the main cause of recession is galloping inflation and poor handling of the econ­omy, given that the higher the rate of inflation, the more im­poverished people become, in­dustrial performance and over­all production decline, resulting in massive job losses.

Perhaps we should quote those who should know and tell Governor Badaru that wrong economic policies of the Gov­ernment of the All Progressive Congress (APC) caused the cur­rent stagnation and recession in the country.

Larry Ettah, President, of the Nigerian Employers Consulta­tive Association (NECA) did not mince words when he said few days ago that “it is quite evi­dent that the lack of clarity about the economic agenda of the cur­rent government contributed to the current economic stagnation and recession.”

He said further: “In recent times at our AGMs, we have variously described our operat­ing environment as challenging, unpredictable, unstable and en­ergy sapping. These words are, of course, true and descriptive of what our members have experi­enced in keeping their business­es afloat.”

However, beyond that, we make bold to tell Governor Ba­daru that Jonathan and the Peo­ple’s Democratic Party Gov­ernment saw this coming since 2011, and wanted to deregulate the sale of hydrocarbons in 2012, but Badaru and his co-travellers who are now in the All Progres­sives Congress, frustrated the ef­fort.

The former Administration also wanted to encourage more savings in the excess crude ac­count (ECA) and set up the Sov­ereign wealth Fund (SWF) but the Badarus of this world, who play politics with serious nation­al issues, especially those who were state governors at the time, took the Federal Government to court and did everything to frustrate the effort. Thank God some of them are among the best brains in the APC federal gov­ernment of today.

Governor Badaru should know that you can’t plant grapes and harvest mangoes. It is no se­cret that the policies and state­ments made by key government actors have not been business friendly and Nigerian and for­eign business men took their hard currencies out of the coun­try. When professionals were ad­vising the government to woo investors, characters like Bada­ru were busy de-marketing Ni­geria all over the world.

They should be reminded that great leaders take over countries either in recession or war and still succeed in turning them around; quite unlike the prevail­ing situation where a ruling par­ty plunged a performing econo­my into an avoidable recession, only to turn round and begin to whine helplessly like a baby.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the Unit­ed States who was in office at the time of unprecedented eco­nomic depression and total war, upon assuming office immedi­ately introduced an ambitious programme for relief, recov­ery and reform called the Great Deal, which began to yield con­siderable dividends in weeks, and Americans even today, have not stopped singing his praise.

Badaru and those who still think like him should tell Nigeri­ans the character of the econom­ic team in place, which has been managing the nation’s econo­my since 29th May 2015. This ‘economic management policy’ of unhealthy propaganda and blaming the previous adminis­tration ceaselessly, will not take us anywhere.

It is on record that one APC governor after his inauguration for his second tenure publicly announced that he inherited an empty treasury.

He was quickly reminded that he couldn’t have inherited an empty treasury from himself. This, unfortunately, is the face of the comedy and farce that now characterise governors and gov­ernance in this country.

Will Badaru and his party men continue to blame Jonathan and the PDP till 2019 and then use Jonathan’s name for the 2019 campaign, instead of showcasing their scorecard? The good thing is that Nigerians, who were being hoodwinked at first, are now see­ing through the deception of this unending blame game.

Any dispassionate assess­ment of economic performance under Jonathan would obvious­ly frown at Governor Badaru’s type of impulsive conclusion, without recourse to the strong macroeconomic fundamentals recorded under Jonathan, which laid the foundation for meaning­ful growth.

In particular, despite interven­ing global downturn, the over­all real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate stood at an average of 6%, a growth that was largely driven by the non-oil sec­tor, in line with the success of the diversification effort of the Ad­ministration. There is no doubt that there was obvious improve­ment in inflation pressure which stood at a single digit and pro­vided the stability and guaran­tees needed for the economy to remain stable.

It actually borders on igno­rance to claim that no cost cut­ting measures were introduced when the Jonathan administra­tion, in one sector, was able to reduce its food import bill from well over N1t to N684.7 billion as at December 2013 and subse­quently cut it further down with unprecedented improvements in local food production.

Where was the Governor when Jonathan’s administra­tion embarked on comprehen­sive reforms in different sectors towards infrastructural renew­al, promotion of sustainable de­velopment and the growth of the nation’s economy to become the largest in Africa with more than $510billion in GDP size and about US$ 2500 per capita in­come?

Did he ever wonder why de­spite the “signals towards end of 2013 to 2014”, as rightly identi­fied by the governor to be the be­ginning of hard times, the econ­omy remained stable with single digit inflation during those pe­riods?

Let Gov. Badaru be reminded that the demand for scarce for­eign exchange needed for im­portation remained limited be­cause the milestones recorded in the local production of rice and other staple food ensured robust local supply and remarkable pro­gression.

We would be disappointed if the governor was oblivious of what was happening around him in the area of agricultural revolu­tion, especially as farmers from his part of the country openly ex­pressed their support and cele­brated their gains from these in­itiatives.

Again, when he said that “the past leaders did nothing to stop” a looming recession, we have no choice but rise to put the facts right. Less we forget, when the Senate approved $52 bench­mark for the administration’s last budget at a time oil was sell­ing for about $60 and crashing further, the government did not just sit down and watch events unfold. Under the leadership of the finance ministry, the admin­istration developed a scenario-based fiscal template, with defi­nite responses designed to track and tackle varying challenges in the volatility regime.

We should also remind Ba­daru that the recent visit of the Facebook founder, Mark Zuk­erberg to the Co-Creation Hub (CcHub) in Yaba, Lagos, wouldn’t have happened if Jon­athan did not have the vision to set up the two ICT incubation centers in Lagos and calabar. The former President built the cen­tres in support of youth entre­preneurship, just as he did with other successful youth-focused programmes like the Youth En­terprise with Innovation (YOU­WIN) and the Nagropreneur in­itiative that turned agriculture into an attractive industry for youths.

Need we remind the Gov­ernor that all these and other sectoral reforms were possible because of the performance con­tract model Jonathan developed for his ministers, where key per­formance indicators (KPI) were jointly agreed and signed, against which each minister’s measura­ble effectiveness was bench­marked?