Let's keep emotion out of the discussion please. This requires an functional level of intelligence and personal discipline so by people's actions we'll see their character.


Backdrop:
For decades the United States has reserved drilling on it's own soil. The main thing to take away from this is the US is actually the worlds largest oil holding nation, with deeper reserves than OPEC's top 4 oil producers combined. Americans have know about this oil since the end of their own civil war in the 1800s but has chosen to restrict drilling for multiple reasons.

1. the environment: A look at the Niger Delta will show you why the environmentalist lobby was so staunchly against oil drilling on US soil. The US has always prided it's self on it's natural environment and Americans are notoriously into the outdoors

2. oil interests: Oil companies know what if all the countries in the world drilled all the know oil reserves in the world, the abundance would be so high that they wouldn't be able to sell their product at a reasonable profit. They keep oil prices high by restricting production. This is well known.




As a matter of strategic interest, the US has realized that relying on overseas oil, even if it's making US companies richer, is making them less able to navigate geopolitics from a position of power. Bottom line is the US was losing it's freedom.

Now that the worlds largest oil producer is drilling, what the oil companies predicted is happening; the price of oil is plummeting and fast.

No effect at all!!! GEJ till 2019.

GEJ Should Have Diversified the Economy

GEJ's administration will be judged by the common man on the street by how their immediate economic situation is at the moment. Nigeria's exports and foreign currency earner is oil and gas. These are the reasons


Diversification: It is believed that if the economy was diversified then our currency wouldn't be dependent on oil...this isn't the whole truth. While recent economic indicators have proven that Nigeria's economy is more diversified than first assumed, the issue isn't diversity, it's volume.
Nigeria is still a giant emerging market. Because of the size of the market, all of our 'new' industries (auto manufacturing, telecoms, Nollywood, etc) still don't NEED to export to survive because none of them have tapped the full market in Nigeria it's self. Nollywood movies are still made for Nigerians for example, they don't need to appeal to whites in the US and Canada because the Nigeria market is huge and they still haven't tapped all of it (for example people there are people in the North that still don't listen to Afrobeats or watch Nollywood).


So while Nigeria's economy is more diverse, the size of our market has made Oil and Gas the only thing we produce at a higher volume than our market demands. Nigeria won't start needed to export it's products at serious volume for the next few decades while the market grows. This is why Japan is more Export driven than the US. Japanese companies have mastered the Japanese Market, while the US market is so deep that US companies can only concern themselves with the US and will have years to go until they have to consider expanding outside of the US.





Conclusion: The Nigerian Economy is diversified but the market is still deep. And Innoson motors that didn't exist 10 years ago as an automanufacture is here today and counts as 'diversity', but it hasn't mastered the Anambra market, let alone the entire Nigerian one to the point that it needs to export (though they're still considering it for the sake of saying they're exporting)

CBN/Finance Ministry Should Control the Currency


The weakening currency means people's earnings and savings will be diminished. Since banks haven't penetrated the market (again because of size), most Nigerians don't have loans and major savings that can be effected by this. What it will effect is the cost of products in the market, namely imports.


The bottom line is all oil economies except the US are going through a rescission. The US is booming at the expense of all of the other oil producing countries and they're all experiences currency rate drops because they're losing business. The CBN and Finance Ministry can at most restrict government spending because they will be the most effected by this situation but they have to either wait till demand for oil increases (won't happen) or until Nigerian business have reached enough market penetration to seriously start considering exports (this will take decades as many markets in the north are still untouched by most Nigerians business).


Conclusion: GEJ will be judged for something that's not 100% in his hands.

Make: The lower cost of oil means a lower cost of Kerosene, and gas, two things that determine the vote in Nigeria exponentially (all well as the cost of food, ethnicity, and religion)

Mar: The average Nigerian won't understand the mechanics of what's happening to the economy and will fault GEJ for the drop in their savings and the value of the Naira



My Prediction: This current situation favors the extremely poor as gas and kerosene will now be more affordable and we all know the price of food has dropped. Meanwhile the middle class will become frustrated and angry at the value of their savings dropping and the increased cost of sustaining their lifestyle and social status. AKA more votes in rural areas, less in urban areas.

GEJ cannot lead Nigeria in a $60 a barrel scenario. You need a mean, penny pinching, corruption hating nasty guy who does not like people. Somebody like Obj.
The Babangida and Atiku kind of people should not near the seat. It is not an insult on these.people, it is just fact. Most departmental budgets are padded, half of the capital budgets are for non existent projects and stolenby individuals. We need.a president who would send IRS after tax defaulters without fear or favour.. We need someone who will watch our dishonest FDI partners who bring in say $1bn to build a business, then take $1bn back home every year as profit...which means the tax code.is either not working or our tax people do not have good acxountants. Even a Buhari would be able to offer only his incorruptibility and at the end of the day he needs a nasty hatchet man for Ngozi Iweala's kind of office. Jonathan however.is not qualified at all for post 2015 elections Nigeria.

No, because they have stolen enough b4 now. eg; NNPC $49 billion dollars scam.