Lalasticlala

Nigerians took to social media to express their displeasure and to some extent sacarsm on the finance minister for saying recession is just a word. She has since deleted the tweet

Some say the world bank has recognized the wonderful initiative has one of the leading job creation exercise in Africa and may bankroll it instead of giving aids

Some of the Youwin beneficiaries have created 4 direct jobs and up to 30 indirect jobs

YouWin program was launched in Nigeria in the year 2012 at the Presidential Villa. YouWin! as an acronyms stands for Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria. The program is a joint product of four ministries from the federal republic of Nigeria namely; Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Communication and Technology, Ministry of Youth development and the Ministry of Women Affairs[2] The execution of this program is to finance the projection of the government of enhancing 3600 entrepreneurship youths in the country


The first edition tagged YouWin!1 was initiated to sensitised aspiring entrepreneurship Youth on job creation by funding their business plans. The second edition (YouWin!2) was a Mono-gender version, with Women below the age of 45 year as target participants. It rewarded over 1200 youths.The third edition YouWin!3 was Poly-gender with a record awardees of over 2500 Youth.

The working of the Program

The fund granted by YouWin is equity contribution into the business of selected awardee. Such a person aside being a Youth must have a business plan for a registered company with Corporate Affairs Commission in Nigeria. The fund disbursement is designated through any of the participating commercial banks in Nigeria[5][6][7]

puskin

Comments from Nigerians

Facts about the jailed Ex DG of Nimasa:

Raymond Omatseye was appointed by Yar'Adua in July 2009.

Eighteen (18) months later, Goodluck Jonathan sacked him on suspicions of corruption and was subsequently charged to court by EFCC.

Raymond Omatseye went to court with a suit of no case against the EFCC, which he lost.

On January 21, 2013, he was arraigned by the EFCC during Goodluck Jonathan's tenure on an amended 27 count charge before Justice Ofili Ajumogobia, where he pleaded not guilty and his trial eventually began.

Mr. Omatseye was eventually jailed on those counts.

The fight against corruption in EFCC vs Raymond Omatseye was not started by APC, neither was any new charges proffered by them.
This one was done by Dr Goodluck E. Jonathan.

When they come like holocaust, seeking to reap where they did not sow, deflate their balloons with the truth.

Our economy and their economy no be mate!

Rocktation come and see oo

VULCAN:
I want to congratulate jpphillips, 989900 and others who have some REAL knowledge of what happens behind the scenes in the Nigerian downstream oil and gas sector. You have responded well to the OP's weak attempt to convince us of the need to "immediately" remove The Subsidy.

Having read almost every post here I gleaned a few things about the OP

1. He is completely ignorant of the workings of our downstream sector. To load his first post with petrol price figures from 2012 was his first albatross. It proved that he was working from a predetermined answer back to the question. More evidence of this is his over reliance on info from Google. If ur fully involved in a thing when you talk people will know.

2. He has no form of understanding of the causes or potentially destructive results of galloping inflation in a country that is import dependent. Relative to its size Nigeria produces nothing- whether goods or services. The City of London props up the entire British economy via its financial sector. Man, for now oil is all we got. Three times or so he says that an increase in petrol price from N87 to N220 will have no effect on Nigerians. Obviously he avoided Macroeconomics class in school.

3. He is a very callous being. Anybody who can't afford to run their car at N220 should park it according to him.

4. He is very deceptive. He skillfully ignored the fact that EVERY thriving Western economy has subsidies(in one form or another) in place for the betterment of the lives of their people.

5. He is bereft of any deep thinking on this matter.
I might have been swayed if he had a superior strategy and tactics to make his immediate subsidy removal work but all he does is present emotional pleas about whether we want our unborn kids to suffer. Beer parlour arguments I must say. Nothing of substance just fluff in his arguments. Pity.

My prayer for you is that God will not permit your type position of National Influence because you're obviously too immature to take us to the next level.

Let me stop here for now. But before I continue I would like peeps to present here some more workable ideas (that dont involve the destruction of the masses)for our enlightenment.

How market?

LAGOS, Nigeria — The collapsed price of oil is putting pressure on oil exporters around the world, from Canada to Kuwait. But perhaps no country is less prepared to survive prices at about $30 a barrel than Nigeria, which until a few years ago relied heavily on petroleum exports for its revenue. While countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia have saved past oil profits for rainy days, Nigeria has no such insulation. What’s worse is that Nigeria is especially dependent on imports of basic goods.

The cracks are starting to show: While the official rate doesn’t reflect it, Nigeria’s currency, the naira, is the world’s worst performing this year.

The economic troubles could hardly have come at a worse time. Last year, Nigerians elected Muhammadu Buhari as president after he ran on a zealous anti-corruption platform. Unfortunately, Mr. Buhari’s insistence on maintaining the peg at the current official exchange rate is not only crippling production, it is also encouraging corruption. He should abandon it as soon as possible and allow the naira to devalue.

Nigeria has pegged the naira to the dollar for decades, adjusting the exchange rate according to international supply and demand. But even as Nigeria’s economy has faltered, since last spring the peg has remained fixed at around 198.5 naira to the dollar. This rate is being maintained at the president’s insistence, undermining any notion of central bank independence.

To keep the rate fixed, the central bank has to preserve its foreign currency reserves, a difficult task as oil export revenue has fallen. How does it do that? By making it more difficult for Nigerians to obtain hard currency at the official rate. Primarily, the central bank has restricted access to foreign currency to importers who can demonstrate that the goods they’re bringing into Nigeria are necessary.

But Nigerians are innovative. A large parallel currency exchange has taken shape, in which importers trade naira for dollars at up to twice the official rate. The trade is too blatant to be called a black market. Last month, for example, I saw several currency exchange businesses at the Lagos airport that offered 380 naira to the dollar. Nigerian newspapers even include reports of the unofficial exchange rate.

The Buhari government hopes that the fixed exchange rate will prevent inflation. Yet inflation has risen sharply to the highest rates in almost five years. The prices of many imported goods have almost doubled, suggesting that they reflect the black market exchange rate rather than the official rate.

I recently saw this problem firsthand when I visited one of the country’s largest manufacturers of cardboard box packaging. Its production lines were either slowed or shut down. Thousands of employees were seeing their hours, and wages, cut back. In some cases, the company had been unable to import materials like labels. In other cases, the company’s customers had run out of items to box.

This is how bad policy turns a currency crisis into a recession.

What’s more, rationing foreign currency creates the wrong type of competition. As imports become more expensive, Nigeria’s companies should be looking for new ways to produce with fewer imports. They’re not. Instead, businessmen are trying to use their political networks to compel the central bank to sell them dollars at the low official rate, to deny dollars to their competitors, or both. The Economist recently reported that bank officials levy a 30 percent charge for the favor. Not only are these schemes a bad use of entrepreneurial cunning, they also undermine hopes for the corruption-free Nigeria this president promised.

Mr. Buhari says that devaluing the naira would hurt too much, that the imports on which Nigerians depend would become expensive, and rising prices would damage households across society. Usually, the pain of devaluation comes with a silver lining of promoting exports. But Nigeria hardly exports anything other than oil and gas. In fact, it often can’t produce what it needs for itself, even goods it should be exporting, like cereals and gasoline. In other words, as Mr. Buhari notes, devaluing the naira would bring about the worst effects of a weak currency, inflation, and provide none of the best, like increased exports.

Mr. Buhari must be frustrated. His predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, enjoyed oil prices over $100 for most of his presidency and oversaw some of the highest government revenues in Nigeria’s history. He also issued three bonds on international markets in favorable global capital markets. Conditions at the time were excellent for building Nigeria’s domestic production capacity.

Mr. Jonathan also presided over a systematic looting of the public coffers swollen by borrowing and the oil surplus. In his presidency, over $20 billion is said to have vanished from the national oil company. The rest of the surplus expanded government payrolls, especially in the run-up to elections, and funded questionable building projects, often never finished.

Mr. Buhari’s administration has proposed a sensible budget, issued plans for incentives to invest in agriculture and mining, and is seeking investors to build more energy infrastructure. But none of these plans will be possible if the government maintains an artificial exchange rate. If Mr. Buhari really wants to build credible and transparent institutions, he should start by giving the central bank the independence to manage the currency and foreign reserves and get it out of the business of deciding what goods can and cannot be imported, or which firms can obtain foreign currency.



http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/04/12/opinion/how-to-save-nigerias-economy-and-stop-corruption.html?_r=0&referer=

Mynd44 and lalasticlala come oooh

cc: mizmycoli, tonyebarcanista, firefire, TippyTop
Teryfik Sdindan Roob ChappyChase Ishiamu gunuvi Truckpusher Rozayx5 bomsilaga, erunz dunsman Nigerianvenom PRYCE Phockphockman, nwadiuko1, ibokUtoroh, Koded, iPrinz20 Aprokoman, OcheJoseph, Dearpreye, Firefire, Tomakint Francizy, Temitemi1, Hinwazaka, Dumkem21 Biafranqueen, Mogidi, IsraeliAirforce, Candyrain, Ambivert, Rose2014, Opiaoku, Anonimi, Engineerboat, Talktimi, ahaika23, coolestrogue APCSucks Emperortj93 DebateNigeria Chukwudi44
APCHaram

Add yours y'all

Times are hard in Nigeria. A lot of us are physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially frustrated. Sadly, the only person anyone can kick in the shin right now is President Muhammadu Buhari.

But kicking President Buhari comes with great damage to one’s feet. President Buhari is a saint. You have to contend with fanatical Buharideens and Buharists who confidently believe that the man is God’s gift to humanity. You have to survive the onslaught of APC youths who absolutely detest free speech, freedom of expression or even rule of law. And then, most terrifyingly, you have to face your own people—the people to whom you preached Buhari in 2015—and try to explain to them that, all the gods forbid, you are not a “wailer”.

Or, maybe, you are just a known social critic and you want to score points for objectivity. Or, possibly, you are a generally nice person and—though heaven knows the fuel and power situation is killing you daily—you honestly don’t want to hurt the president’s fragile feelings.

Well, look no further, here’s how to criticise Buhari and still live to fight another day.

Start with PDP: Whether your criticism takes the form of a Facebook post, a series of tweets, an open letter, a full blown article or an inspired poem, always make like Lai Mohammed and start with PDP. Make it known from the outset that you positively hate PDP. Even if your knowledge of PDP started in the last 5 years–you must capture PDP’s sixteen years. (“16” is now a magic figure in Nigerian history.) This no-holds-barred anti-PDP stance is what will determine the “objectivity” of your article. In APC’s Nigeria, PDP has no positives. And as far as APC people are concerned, the only objective critics of Buhari are the people who demonstrably supported Buhari. Those 12 million silly Nigerians who voted Jonathan are second-class citizens whose parents missed road in their upbringing. They have no right to criticise Buhari. Wailing wailers. Examples of how to start your criticism: “Everyone knows PDP destroyed Nigeria these 16 years…“, “When I voted Buhari in 2015…”, “In 2015, I supported the Buhari campaign…”, “If I had to vote again, I can never vote for PDP…”, “Let me be clear, I can never support PDP”. Of course, you may not have actually voted for APC or even voted at all on March 28, 2015, but that’s between you, your deity and INEC.


Commend Buhari’s efforts so far: Obviously, Buhari has not been lounging since he came into office. The man has been very busy. Take a look: he has enforced the TSA, routed Boko Haram, appointed excellent Ministers, prepared a Budget of Hope, solidified Nigeria’s foreign policy, and burnt a lot of aviation fuel. You have to acknowledge this hard work if you want to stay alive after your criticism. Look for something positive and praise it like the best thing since Olajumoke’s unsliced bread. “I cannot help but praise your innovation in implementing the TSA…”. Do you even know what TSA does? Who cares? Just mention it. “As we look forward to the passing of the impressive 2016 Budget …”, “Your presidential poise in official photographs fills me with inspiration and hope for the future.”
Attack the other critics: You want to criticise Buhari and escape the whipping? Then make it clear that you are not one of them. By “them” you mean the wailing wailers–those 12 million Nigerians who voted for Jonathan and now have bellyache. You, on the other hand, are a genuine, objective, constructive Buhari-loving critic who wants nothing but the progress of the president. You do not want to be mistaken for those PDP anarchists. “I know some people are happy that I am criticising Buhari, but they are mistaken if they think I am one of them”, or you can be very direct: “Bleep you, wailers. Don’t you dare think I am wailing.” You are merely advising the president. Honestly.



Play the “fighting corruption” card: If there’s anything that shows just how much you appreciate Buhari’s tenure, it is your stance on the war against corruption so far. Don’t you dare suggest the war is not shaping up. This is the only thing for which you cannot criticise Buhari. Anti-corruptuon is Buhari territory. In fact, you have to go gaga on how overwhelmingly successful the fight has been. Here’s a secret: Buhari’s war against corruption is like the Emperor’s New Robes: if you cannot see it, then there must be something fundamentally wrong with your moral system. Or have you collected some of the Dasuki loot? You had better ramp up your appreciation of the amazing, glorious, and fantastic fight against corruption. “The war on corruption is a huge success…“, “I support the ongoing fight against corruption in our country...”, “President Buhari, the level of corruption in the country has dropped dramatically since you were sworn in!”
Beg permission for your criticism: Now that you have successfully demonstrated your loyalty, ask for permission to mention your concerns. Be polite. Buhari is not your daddy. Buhari is minding his business and you people and your problems will just come and be disrespecting him anyhow.“Dear Buhari, I know you are busy with more important issues like the Nuclear Summit, but allow me to mention this small issue of fuel scarcity…”



Criticise carefully: This is the dangerous part. Don’t rush in like a wailing wailer on a suicide mission. Don’t attack Buhari or blame him for whatever is worrying you. He is not the cause of your problem. He is here, like Jesus on the cross, to save you from the 16 years of your parents’ stupidity. So, watch your language. Keep the tone passive or pleasant. Also, make suggestions, don’t just criticise. “Dear Buhari, sometimes we have to say the truth, this fuel scarcity caused by the PDP is becoming serious…”, “I wish to call the president’s attention to the recent Agatu issue…”, “I know the judiciary/CBN/NNPC/PDP/is not helping matters but I beg Buhari to look into the issue of…”. Acknowledge the stumbling blocks in Buhari’s path and suggest their removal. There are plenty to choose from: the CBN, NNPC, PDP, judiciary, rule of law, even the damn Constitution. “Buhari is king, Bleep the Constitution…“. If you are desperate and your phone battery is about to die: “Buhari, epp us, plix.”



Reassure Buharists of your loyalty: Phew! That was close. If you did your work well, the Buharideens and APC youths will be in your comments at this point. They will praise your objectivity and constructive criticism. Your retweets and likes will be flowing like money into Dasuki’s account. You can go home at this point, but if you want to “kill them totally” just add another reminder of your faith in the Church of Buhari. Repeat your attack on wailers and Jonathanians and, if you really want to go nuclear, Zikists, Awoists, IBBists, Abachians…. No, no. Don’t ever attack Abachians. Perish the thought. One mistake like that and you’re back in Wailerland. Don’t go beyond the 16 year benchmark. Buhari has a past too, so just stay in the present, or in the future. “I remain committed to the Change agenda…”, “I am confident in President Buhari’s abilities…”, “Under Buhari, I know Nigeria is destined for a great future…”.
Remind everyone that you’re the boss: If you are not feeling ashamed of yourself at this point, then congrats, you’re a first class sycophant! For the rest of us, normal citizens, we have our conscience to deal with. Knowing how much ass we have just kissed, we have to balance things by reminding Buhari that we elected him and we are boss. We will continue to criticise him. Hard. Next time. “We are watching you, sir, and we will continue to be vigilant”, “In 2015, I promised I will criticise you, sir, and I am going to continue keeping my promise, sir”, “The office of the citizen requires that we do this, sir. Please, sir. Take note, sir.”

http://ayosogunro.com/2016/04/05/how-to-criticise-buhari-and-get-away-with-it-by-ayo-sogunro/


lalasticlala, obinoscopy Mynd44

O Canada.....What a cabinet:
Minister of Health is a doctor.
Minister of Transport is an astronaut.
Minister of National Defense is a Sikh Veteran.
Minister of Youth is under the age of 45.
Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food is a former farmer.
Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness was a Scout.
Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development was a financial analyst.
Minister of Finance is a successful businessman.
Minister of Justice was a crown prosecutor and is a First Nations leader.
Minister of Sport, and Persons with Disabilities is a visually impaired Paralympian.
Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, and Canadian Coastguard is Inuit.
Minister of Science is a medical geographer with a PhD.
New titles include
Minister of Immigration, Citizenship and Refugees was an Immigration critic.
There are scientists in the cabinet, and it is made up of 50% women.

Lalasticlala
myn44

These are the number of primary school Teachers Primary school students

More pictures

Recall that Mrs. Buhari Sent Mrs. Osinbajo on a presidential jet all the way from Abuja to donate gifts to Victims of Benue Massacre.

https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154089697374583&id=757984582&set=a.10150641418229583.405875.757984582&source=56

Three things are key to the fight against corruption
1. Moral values
2. Accounting
3.Policing

In that other. Not fixing those first 2 is the same as filling a basket. Good thing the minister is talking about proper accounts. Unfortunately for her, fixing that problem will indict 99 percent of her party members. Waec has said it cost 16 billion to run itself same way Fashola has said it cost 75 million to build a website site. Same way we all know government contracts are overly marked up.

aadejesu:
Read the first paragraph only, total nonsense, op clearly does not understand the Nigerian economy or what's happening for that matter.

What is the Nigerian Economy and what is happening to it. We all are here to learn. Teach us expert.

Standing5:
Your half smart gimmick won't work. You indirectly blame the current admin but go on to say no name calling. Solution is for folks like you to get up your lazy ässes and do real work that can earn Nigeria forex value. Another solution is for you to allow buhari recover the trillions languishing in private pockets of ex-govt officials in peace.

Kindly quote the "blame" statement in my post

IyaIode:


You are so wrong


When we refine a barrel of
crude oil of 42 gallons or 159
litres, we get products as
follows: gasoline or PMS (19.4
gallons or about 73 litres which
is about 47 percent), Kerosene
or Jet fuel (10 percent), diesel
and heating oil (23 percent),
propane 4 percent, asphalt 3
percent, other products


www.vanguardngr.com/2015/05/petroleum-sector-what-buhari-must-know-about-subsidy-refining-and-the-transparency-question/

You are being to optimistic. In project management, there is what we call P10, P50 and P90 models. Most managers use the P50 models ( average) to plan, some even use P10. My P50 model analysis is what I provided to you.

That said, we seem to want the same thing ( increased in house refining capacity). Why I want more refineries, you want one single mega refinery.

IyaIode:
gohome

even our useless refineries produce 6 million ltrs a day. I am interested in your calculations.


www.premiumtimesng.com/business/196250-nigerian-refineries-now-produce-6-7-million-litres-of-petrol-daily-nnpc.html

25% crude = PMS
1 bbl = 159 liters
25% of 159 liters = 40 liters


In other words 40 liters of PMS/gasoline can be gotten from a barrel of crude.

So,
40 X 600,000 = 24,000,000 liters
No plant, factories, engineering structure etc is built to operate at 100 percent capacity. Unless you want to run it to the ground. Most average at about 50-60 percent capacity. Extremely effective once can go up to 80%

Again 60 % of 24,000,000= 14,000,000 liters

Also production rate is different from consumption rate. What I mean is that if you produce 1 liter, it doesn't just appear in you car. Some are trapped in technical and logistical issues. Well organized companies with state of the art logistics and superb infrastructure (rail) have what we call 0.8 factor. What it means is that for every liter you produce, 0.8 liters are felt directly by the consumers and 0.2 are just on their way.

If you multiply this factor to the equation you will have

0.8 X 14,000,000= 11.5 million liters

These are average figures and not very optimistic. Nigeria is not known to be very efficient so that's why I think the average figures are more realistic.



Thank you for contributing to the thread. We need people like you in this forum. Peace

9jatriot:
All things going with the rhetoric's that agriculture should be our main stay should pay a visit to interior villages and see products being produced and wasted each year. The problem is not in farming but in creating a market that takes these products from the farmers at a good rate that will encourage them to farm again next season.

A lot of people whose parent are farmers will not go into farming today because they grew up with their parents living as paupers whereas their neighbour who was a politician was living large. If agriculture becomes lucrative today, Nigerians will naturally gravitate there.

Farming alone doesn't cut it. Processing farm produce is the solution. I will put it simply, any economy that depends only resources (farming crude oil etc) will never be advance

IyaIode:


I stopped reading this trash when i got here. Dangote's refinary is 600,000 bpd

there are 70 liters of petrol in a barrel of oil

70 x 600,000 = 42 million liters a day.

Get ur facts right.

Read this and recalculate

Standing5:
You are being political with the truth here. Russia with all of its technological might even did not attempt to diversify their economy in less than a year, they set a 7-year window for it. That's what they did in reaction to the oil price crash which they know is no fault of Putin or their ruling party. Here you open your brain and try to blame APC for OPEC slipping cartel-like grip on oil prices control.
Buhari or APC isn't the reason Nigeria can't attempt to diversify the economy in 7-years, the 16 years of wasteful spending of excess crude accruals under Africa's largest clique (atleast as proven by arms scandal and oil fraud) looked a better time to have divesifyed the economy and substituted as many foreign goods and service with local alternative to boost the economic sustainance of Nigeria. Russia, with all its technological might, still saved for their current state same time Nigeria was experiencing same proportiönal surge in oil earning the did. We know OBJ tried to spur on local production capacity by banning or heavily taxing foriegn alternatives. What i don't know is why one particular man thinks cassava bread as economic diversification stsategy will cushion the massive effects of leakages from oil theft, NNPC looting, arms scandal, ministries stealing etc.

Comparing Russia to Nigeria is like comparing an ant with an elephant. Russia has a strong economy base. In the range of x100. They have human resources, (among the top 3 in the world)
They can manufacture heavy duties. Heavy duties to be used for road construction power station manufacturing plants compressor heat engines cars etc. We can even make pensils. What this means is that even though you have all the resources in the world and close your boarders you will still be at the mercy of others. you will need to beg IMF, world bank, Russia and China for help.

Contrary to popular opinion our main problem is incompetence. We are too dumb. Incompetence is what will make a man still billions, ride fancy cars in an unkept road. corruption like lies and stealing is a vice and cannot go away. And like any other vice, you can use it for you and also against you.Do you know corruption built the western world as we know it. Our problems are hydra headed and solving it without proper framework is a tall dream. We need competent people cutting across political divide always there churning out strategies and ideas for growth.

Brazil with almost the same population as Nigeria has a budget of 980 billion Dollars, guess what's Nigerian budget, more than 10 times less. Which leader will harness effectively harness our potential? Even if we stop the looting of the money we currently have, we would still be in a mess. Do you know that the Nigeria budget is the same as Saudi budget for education alone?

musicwriter:


I got interested in this because you mentioned STEM and Germany. That tells me you know something about development which our government seem to know nothing about.

Recently, I heard the CBN governor blaming imports for our bad economy. Well, that's right, but what he seem not to understand is that import dependent economy is a symptom that something is wrong. What's wrong?. The root cause is lack of STEM in schools. The root cause of our economic problem whether in Nigeria or other African countries is lack of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math education- STEM.

We don't know science!!. NO NATION WILL INDUSTRIALIZE WITHOUT SCIENCE!. Only science can solve the poverty problem of any nation!.

Aside this, every other thing you listed is chasing shadows, the same old treating symptoms instead of the cause of sickness.

To begin any economic development in Africa, the first thing that needs be done is restructure education in Africa. Ban English and French is schools and give free education/scholarship to every student studying sciences; chemistry, physics, biology, mathematics.

Fiscal policy or investments or whatever you call them are cosmetic solutions, they're treating symptoms as you rightly stated. Africa cannot develop with the current western brainwashing model of education we inherited from Britain and France. Western education is anti-development!!.

No need to write an epistle here, cause all these was discussed in full in part 1 and 2 of the link on my signature.

I read your link. Awesome

Standing5:
You are being political with the truth here. Russia with all of its technological might even did not attempt to diversify their economy in less than a year, they set a 7-year window for it. That's what they did in reaction to the oil price crash which they know is no fault of Putin or their ruling party. Here you open your brain and try to blame APC for OPEC slipping cartel-like grip on oil prices control.
Buhari or APC isn't the reason Nigeria can't attempt to diversify the economy in 7-years, the 16 years of wasteful spending of excess crude accruals under Africa's largest clique (atleast as proven by arms scandal and oil fraud) looked a better time to have divesifyed the economy and substituted as many foreign goods and service with local alternative to boost the economic sustainance of Nigeria. Russia, with all its technological might, still saved for their current state same time Nigeria was experiencing same proportiönal surge in oil earning the did. We know OBJ tried to spur on local production capacity by banning or heavily taxing foriegn alternatives. What i don't know is why one particular man thinks cassava bread as economic diversification stsategy will cushion the massive effects of leakages from oil theft, NNPC looting, arms scandal, ministries stealing etc.

Can we discuss without name calling? Plus I need solutions not blames. Please let us focus on the solutions to our problems with minimal or no blame.

That said


Comparing Russia to Nigeria is like comparing an ant with an elephant. Russia has a strong economy base. In the range of x100. They have human resources, (among the top 3 in the world)
They can manufacture heavy duties. Heavy duties to be used for road construction power station manufacturing plants compressor heat engines cars and not to forget military hardware. We can not even make pensils. What this means is that even though you have all the resources in the world and close your boarders you will still be at the mercy of others. you will need to beg IMF, world bank, Russia and China for help. Some of these technologies are not rocket science. Example is using iron ore to produce metal bars. Most of these technologies are secrets. Only indigenous STEM guys can innovate. That's why I need is to take STEM seriously.

Contrary to popular opinion our main problem is incompetence. We are too dumb. Incompetence is what will make a man still billions, ride fancy cars in an unkept road. corruption like lies and stealing is a vice and cannot go away. And like any other vice, you can use it for you and also against you.Do you know corruption built the western world as we know it. Our problems are hydra headed and solving it without proper framework is a tall dream. We need competent people cutting across political divide always there churning out strategies and ideas for growth. The civil service is suppose to be doing this, but unfortunately they can't. Not well trained and exposed, corrupts and just grossly incompetent and to be fair not completely their fault.

Brazil with almost the same population as Nigeria has a budget of 980 billion Dollars, guess what's Nigerian budget, more than 10 times less. Which leader will harness effectively harness our potential? Even if we stop the looting of the money we currently have, we would still be in a mess. Do you know that the Nigeria budget is the same as Saudi budget for education alone? Do you also know that New York City budget for 9 million people is more that Nigeria budget of 170 million people?

Please I would love contributors strictly on the Economy. Also can we use this thread to abstain from not calling names, parties tribes groups etc. and act like we are tomorrow's leaders debating our future for our kids, born and unborn.

If we abstain from name calling, Nlanders, trust me we would be proud of ourselves. Let us make this thread a test run for healthy discussion.

Lalasticlala, Seun, please do us a favor and move this to front page for wider audience.

We have a problem.
1. Weak Fiscal Policy and political structure.
2. Executing good economic policies.


I will only touch on 2 because the ruling party does not have the nerve to dismantle the fiscal structure we have now. Also so unfortunate the last one could not. In the next elections, we should vote for the guy that will stop handouts to states. The gain of just this single decision is too enormous to mention in this thread. Will create another thread highlighting this

I will go ahead with number 2. Solutions to number 2 start with a good plan (budget). Unfortunately we have started off in the wrong foot. The growth rate of a country depends on rate of saving and investment. For this purpose, budgetary policy aims to mobilise sufficient resources for investment in the public sector. Therefore, the government makes various provisions in the budget to raise overall rate of savings and investments in the economy. what I have seen so far in this years budget is not impressive. Hopefully next year will be much better.


Another example as regards to policy is curbing inflation rate. Look around you, you can hardly find anything manufactured in Nigeria. So what it means is that inflation is going to be in double figures because of a devalued Naira at 310 to a dollar. It's a bad policy to fix the Naira and not let market forces work. A good example to explain this bad policy is the way and manner we have handled our forex. Firstly, the entire policy to control our outflow was not carefully thought through. What we are doing is fixing the roof because of bad foundation. Or repainting the car and feeling good when your engine is about to knock. Bad precedence we have laid in the past 50 years. Keeping the right to set the dollar price exclusively to CBN is a recipe for disaster. It's only a matter of time and that time will be when oil is worthless. Do you know that the CBN gathers all our dollars and print Naira equivalents of these dollars. They flood this Naira in the economy and because the GDP growth is not equivalent to the Flooded Naira, inflation starts to kick in, the CBN the go ahead to reduce to cash in circulation by raising interest rate, selling T bills and even borrowing from bank at huge cost. Imagine! The simple solution to this is to let it stand on its feet. Every body source for your dollars and let your customers buy it at any price.

But wait a minute, the decision to do that is not so simple, the dollar will reach 500 Nairas, so politically, it will be suicidal considering the fact that 1 Naira was suppose to be of equal value to the dollar.

A true devalued Naira may be a solution to our problems. It will reignite the real sector. Manufactured good in Nigeria can now compete with foreign goods In Nigeria. Thousand of Jobs will be created. We will get better at it and even start to export. There is hope people.

That's the only way. For you to increase your outflow, you have to be able to sell manufactured products, resources like oil etc can not cut you in. To be able to manufacture competively with China, Germany etc, you will need

1. Technology
2. Fiscal policies, tax cuts import waivers on heavy duties etc
3. Most important, Infractructural development (1 Trillion US at least).This will include power, rail, roads, ports etc. unfortunately, we have squandered billions of hard earn forex that should have been used for this
4 Human Resource - STEM professionals, technicians etc
5. Strong Policing- strong police force, legal framework etc.
6. Strong Foreign policy

What do we do?
1. Can we as citizens reach out to our legislators that the budget should reflect the above and don't be passed until it is changed.

2. Can we also push for a well laid out fiscal policy

3. Can we also push for a policy that will ban all forms of commodities except heavy duty equipment from accessing forex from the CBN

4. Can we set a hard target for the power problem to be fixed. (Milestones included). All projects in the world have targets

5. We consume 40 million liters a day of PMS. Dangote refinery will do 10 million liter max. Can we rigorously push for 4 Dangotes to build refineries especially from the oil majors in country.

6. With just a 10% increase in GDP and 30% increase in manufacturing, 2.2 million barrel a day of oil we produce will not be enough for local consumption.






Came across the link below and I thought it might be interesting.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?sns=fb&v=xex7NAhTR_w