Omo! Soludo strikes
again!!! Bomb!!!!!!! Find it after the cut…
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’ $20
billion 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 N4
trillion, 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 N30 trillion 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!
What is at stake is the
survival and prosperity of Nigeria. Next elections are critical, and for me the
key is the ECONOMY. We must offer Nigerians clarity on the choices before them.
Can I propose a three-way debate with you (representing PDP/Federal
Government), nominee of APC (Utomi or Fayemi? or any other), and myself (as
independent citizen— I don’t belong to any of the two). Let us have two bouts
of debate between now and 12th February, 2015 focusing on: CBN/AMCON and the financial
system (if you want); our economy and its outlook, and agenda/alternative paths
to sustainable prosperity post elections. Choose the dates and times, and for
the sake of Nigeria, I will fly in. You can invite any of your international
media friends as moderators. I feel the pain of the 180 million Nigerians whose
tomorrow you have carelessly rendered bleak, and when I think of what the
missing trillions could do for them, it becomes extremely urgent that we all
must deepen the debate. Eagerly waiting for your response, please!
Chukwuma Charles Soludo is
a former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria
Source: Premium Times
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