By January 2017 which is just a little over 25 days away, the economic depression in Nigeria will be clocking the six month period analysts postulate for such situation to be a passing phase in the life of a nation. Advanced democracies with leading countries like the United States have gone through near depression of their economies but have scaled through such times and have bounced back to upgrade the lives of their citizens from poverty to boom and prosperity. How will the Nigerian scenerio end?
To the Nigerian layman and by any means, I do not claim to speak for the vulcanizer on the street, the market woman, civil servant, the pensionier, the labourer or construction worker, the recession have affected all and sundry across all strata of the society in one way or the other. Certainly there are the big, middle and small time politicians and pen thieves who have statched away and are currently enjoying their ill-gotton wealth in the face of hunger, starvation, high cost of food, basic necessities, services and general unemployment and frustrations. We even hear some of them buried large amounts on their farms, which have been recovered.
The situation which the Nigerian layman find himself in this seeming endless recession is a general fall-off in consumer demands, non expansion of their businesses, near folding up of small businesses due to lack of market, sharp drop in the prices of houses, constant lack of electricity coupled with high cost of petrol to run their generators, cars and business equipment, high transportation costs, bad roads all over the country, high cost of medications drugs and lack of water in some cases.
The list is endless and frustrating. But where do we go from here? Government says they are doing a lot to ameliorate the situation and that a lot of plans in critical sector of the economy are being put or have been put in place. To the layman, it is yet to be seen or is taking ages to come to pass.
The Hausa proverb is translated to say that a dog does not know a party is ongoing until he sees it on ground.
The Guardian newspaper of Monday 5th December reported that local production have suffered set back due to dollarisation of raw materials. Federal Government efforts at diversifying the economy and reduce dependence on importation are being undermined by value chain operators, farmers and providers of key raw materials who would rather export raw commodities for foreign exchange than sell to local producers at market prices. The report indicated that exporting raw commodities such as cotton, grains and natural gas to neighbouring countries put pressure on local supplies and therefore suggested the revival of Commodity Marketing Boards.
Another report in the Bussiness Newspaper of same date reported that the Central Bank of Nigeria has reduced the money in circulation in order to mitigate the current state of inflation in the country.
How these and other measures by government will bring an end to the economic recession in 2017 will only be determined by the effect they will have on the Nigerian Layman. The worth of the Nigerian currency (Naira) to him is the lowest ebb since the history of Nigeria. We no longer use coins and today’s five to ten naira currency hardly buys anything.
With one thousand naira today, one can hardly meet up basic necessities. Perhaps one solution to this may be to peg the highest currency denominastion in the country to 500 or at best 200 Naira. Would that be a devaluation of our currency? Over to you economic gurus.
For the layman, an end to economic recession means reduction in petrol prices as recently proposed by the House of Representative members; low cost and easy availability of food, drugs and essential services; massive employment; constant power supply; qualitative education at reasonable costs; good roads and cheap railway services . Only then can we be said to have gone out of the woods! May God help Nigeria.
HENRY A. ANGULU.
Minna, Niger State