JAkpayen:

And your #1000 will be the price of pure water bag.

MAYOWAAK:
While we all live in Nigeria from where we earn our income, it is evident that majority of the elite have no faith in our country. From what we eat to what we drink to what we wear and how we leisure, almost everything we do have direct bearing on our foreign reserves. And because the price of oil (which funds most of our indulgences) has gone down in the international market, we can now see the unclothedness of Nigeria. It is therefore no surprise that the more the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) tries to shore up the value of the Naira, the more it fails simply because our national lifestyles (including fuelling our cars) are more or less Dollar-dependent. For instance, in 2013, importation of PMS cost us a whooping sum of $8.374 billion in scarce foreign exchange. A year later in 2014, the figure had jumped to $10.4 billion and by the year just ended, 2015, when the nation faced the most acute of fuel scarcities, we still expended $8.005 billion on one single commodity. However, the challenge is not only with the downstream sector of our petroleum industry. For instance, within a period of seven months between June and December of 2015, Business Travelling Allowance (BTA) and Personal Travelling Allowance (BTA) alone accounted for $180,307,021.52 of our forex expenditure. And since Nigerians like to travel, the airlines took $584,489,624.60 while school fees for children abroad accounted for $284,928,102. Yet it must be noted that these are just figures from the CBN which tell only a fraction of the story of waste. So, in total, airlines, BTA/PTA and school fess took a whooping sum of $1,049,724,748.12 within a period of seven months!

hopeforcharles:
After reading this, I was weak to the bone, Nigeria was once a great country, How did we descended so so low? Oh God, can Nigeria really be fixed? Hmmm, if we continue like this we are heading for the rocks oh, wonder what those corrupt Government officials do with those huge sums of money, A man told me the average life span for a man to enjoy himself is 70 which after my observations it has elements of truths, then after that what will you do with that huge sums of money stacked up?.

harveyspec:


Pls what does devaluation of the naira mean, what does it entail & it's consequence

A layman's explanation will be appreciated. Thanks

Kirinwa:


Yes, so true. Forex trading is now most lucrative now.
Looking forward to when #1000 will be $1.

Bookiemart01:


Source:


http://thenakedconvos.com/plunging-naira-before-you-blame-emefiele-look-at-yourself/

luggy:
how does this consine Godwin emefiele, Buhari should be blame

Chukzyfcb:
From an Investment point of view, if you convert a huge chunk of your money to dollars and Store it for 10years. By then $1 suppose don be = 700naira
Let's say you covert 1million naira

$1 = 300
1,000,000naira ($3333)

10years later
$1 = 700
$3,333 = 3,333*700 = 2.3million
Gain of 1.3m.....this is more than an annual 10% yield in fixed deposit or bonds or tbills. An added way to diversify your Investmet portfolio
****************************************
NB: No talk say I dey jonze ooo, since you & I have been in primary school, dollar has always been rising and will always continue to Rise.....You know why Its because Our appetite for obodo oyibo goods will stiill be there even in 10yrs time. So exchange rate go still cast! Ighota go

bookface:


Hmm...

Let's see how this works out.

Ban everything - then everything becomes incredibly more expensive! Think about that for a second. The current Ban is pushing inflation to crazy levels already. How would you feel if you need to buy a used laptop at 1 million naira?


There are no easy solutions. But the current approach is worse!

Emefiele should take the following steps.

First, allow a modest devalution of the naira. ---- This should allow the foreign portfolio flows that we urgently need. It would bolster the government coffers and put an end to depletion of the foreign reserve

Second, given that the step above will surely lead to an increase in inflation, he should immediately accompany it with an increase in interest rates

Third, fiscal consolidation is required in non productive sectors - cutting down salaries, laying of non productive workers etc - and simultaneously boost spending in productive sectors - like infrastructure, and agriculture.


The current approach of banning imports and drawing down on foreign reserve seems to rely on hope - hope that one day oil prices may recover. This may well be the case, but who knows? What if it is not? Then what? we draw down on the last bit of foreign reserves and we start borrowing money at incredibly high interest rates.

duni04:
I hate the unnecessary whinning in this article. See as a consumer, I won't patronise made in Nigeria textiles because they are of low quality and they are very scarce. As a producer I won't manufacture textiles in Nigeria because there's no power and the machinery to produce the textiles has to be imported at the current exchange rate and without access to credit facilities from banks. If we want a buoyant textile industry, we should give the manufacturers power and access to cheap credit. We should give the consumers reasons to purchase locally made textiles by improving on the quality of our local production, increasing the duty on Imported textiles and empowering the Customs to do their job and arrest smugglers.
Chikena!
And Mr OP, the exchange rate is not a means of measuring the buoyancy of a country or its economy. You should check how much a dollar exchanges for the Japanese yen. A weaker Naira is even an incentive to exporters as long as we reign in inflation. You can't be advocating for increased export oriented local production and a stronger Naira. Doesn't make sense
All these emotion laden write ups will do us no good. Enough of the noise making already!

persius555:
Ban everything? Believe me, (no insults) you will make a woeful CBN governor. I am tired of commenting issues that borders our economy.
In the 80s, three things killed our economy and if we do not retrace our steps, no matter the policies we put in place we will not make progress.

1. The socio economic crisis that resulted from several military coups really did a lot of economic damages to not only our psyche but our economic value system. The well educated nigerians that would have helped the country grow had left in droves, so also did the creative minds, footballers, musicians, engineers etc. After the advent of democracy, we have not been doing what a nation like rwanda is doing, i believe its called nation building. What we did was to leave our economy in the hands of foreigner who will never love our country more than they love theirs.

2. Our in-ability as a nation to revive our power sector that went comatose in the 80s. This singular factor accounts for the dearth of 80% of our industry. We are in the 20th century for heaven"s sake. Any country in the world today with more than a 100 million people that is serious about building a local manufacturing capacity must be ready to generate no less than 30,000 MW of electricity, the least. Its a pity that a lot of people dont understand the devastating effect of not having a viable power sector. I, myself did not understand this until i ventured into the dangerous waters of " Entrepeneurship in Nigeria". In my own experience, 70% of my generated income went into providing electricity and eventually i had to call it quits. I know a lot of ignorant, block headed nigerians will come hear and say; "There are many businesses in nigeria that you can do that will not requite electricity". This is a mental psyche that an average nigerian has developed in the last three decades that has continued to hold us back.
My reply is go and tell this to the americans, japanese, chinese, indians, south africa and the rest of the world. We nigerians go online and scream "DIVERSIFICATION" as if its is suppose to be a password to freedom or something. Even if we decide to diversify to agriculture for example, do we have the capacity in terms of technology and manpower to deliver an agro allied industry that can meet local and global demand.
For heaven's sake we still operate an agricultural system that is based on subsistence farming while the world has since moved on to technologically driven system. The mining sector is not left out neither. If we are going to run a fully fledged mining system, we would still have to rely on adequate power. Mind you, this sector is heavily "electricity driven".

Below is a list of six countries, population and electricity generated


COUNTRY POPULATION (2013) ELECTRICITY (GWHr)

1. CHINA 1 362 119 434 5,649,500
2. USA 320 050 716 4,297,300
3. INDIA 1 252 139 596 1,208,400
4. JAPAN 127 143 577 1,061,200

5. SOUTH AFRICA 52 776 130 256,100

6. NIGERIA 173 615 345 25,313

7. FINLAND 5 426 323 71,200

N.B South africa is planning to invest $20 billion dollars in 10 nuclear reactors so as to increase present capacity by half in the next ten years while nigeria on the other hand is expecting the minister of power, BRF to wave his magic wand and increase capacity overnight. The earlier we realize we have work to do the earlier we move this economy forward.
Somebody should please ask OBJ how his regime squandered over $13 billion dollars on electricity we never got.

3. PATRIOTISM. The present generation has a lot to learn in this regard, that is if we actually know what is entailed. Has anyone ever asked why 90% of american movies would rather market an APPLE I PHONE, GOOGLE, CHEVROLET or FORD SUV in their movies rather than a samsung or toyota?
That is PATRIOTISM and what you will get on the other side is PATRONAGE. You dont buy it in the international market, rather its unique to every nationhood.

bookface:


Dude you are on point about the inflation thing however, if we have the will-strong will, the way to go is to install a iron curtain on imports.
Inflation will kick in, but if sustained local production will rise to the occasion and you will see a change in consumer's habit and taste that will encourage a thriving local industry.

Though not easy, we will have to make the ultimate sacrifice, it means we will suffer for our children or the next generation-25years period to enjoy.

The President should simply stop his grandstanding, his Mr-I-Know-it-all stance and call a town hall meeting on TV. He has to sincerely speak to Nigerians and seek help in drafting a strong plan from people across political divide to get us out of the wood in 25years.

A 25years old plan gives no one the illusion that there is a quick fix and early reprieve is coming any time soon.

We have to unfortunately cut most of the things we consider fun or the-good-life.
We will have to dig deep to come up with local innovations to get us out of the woods. We will have to show fanatic belief and patriotism to our country even at the ends of biting hardship.

My suggestion:

1. The President must engage intelligent Nigerians and Nigerians in diaspora to develop a concise, robust and fail-proof economic blueprint for the country with a target to be among the first 5 developed economy of the world.
2. Subject this plan to rigorous simulation to come up with plan B, C and D scenarios.
3. Call a National town Hall meeting via National radio and TV stations, and sincerely explain to Nigerians the blueprint, explain to them in lay terms the implication of going on with the blueprints, our targets and what they stand to loose as well gain after it.
Explain to them that it will get a lot worse, most of them may never get to see/witness the final point but their children will live in a much better society after 25 years.
All the Telephone companies must make all calls during this town hall meetings free: as this will be their contribution to bettering the country.
With call lines established so anyone can call in and express their worries and ask their questions.
4. call on all corporate bodies in Nigeria as well as friends of Nigeria, friendly countries who intend to support Nigeria in this plan and sell to them profits recoverable in 25 years and the advantage they stand to gain at the end of the blueprints. This could be in form Nigeria life time franchise protection or monopoly.
5.For those who will not support the country, ask them to fold up and leave the country so we can take a good stock of where we are and what is available as we take off.
6. Establish a strong economic curtain for imports and about everything.
That means vacation, education, leisure, medical tourism, television stations, cars, food, clothes, entertainment language will be affected.

7. Establish secured borders in the country with a clean census of the people and family in the country.
8. Establish true boarders for PWDs like infrastructures, Constructions, powers for the unemployed.
I can not say this enough: even if it means we divide our country into 6 geo-zones at first.
And in year make at least 2 Eko Altlantic Cities out of every zone: this will turn Nigeria into a one huge construction yard with boarders for Nigerians; unemployment will be zero.
Continue this every year for 25 years: in 25 years we will be able to raise 25*6*2 EKo Atlantic City-like cities in the country and 50 per region.
This complete with the infrastructures like roads, power and water utilities will turn Nigeria to the next world wonder and model for the world.
Establish massive agricultural lands and invest massively in crops of comparative advantage with a complete value chain system in view: we can seek the help of the last Minister of Agriculture and the present one to drive this revolution in Agro-Allied Industries.
9. Every year, pay all Nigerians through their recognized registered family dividend from the profits made and keep a savings for the raining day.
10. Yearly give account via the town hall meeting the progress achieved, what is left, how much from the milestone did we deviate and how will plan to make up for the short fall with the consultant review the data coming in yearly and making amend where it is needed.

11. Ensure, successful Govt. sign on to this plan and will implement this until after 25 years when we arrive at where we ought to be.
12. Make sure we develop a unique culture and language that identifies us.
13. Ensure expat jobs are regulated.
14. After the 25 years review the document, Nigerians will naturally ask then for the curtain not to be removed so we can continue to enjoy the economic bliss.

Kirinwa:


Yes, so true. Forex trading is now most lucrative now.
Looking forward to when #1000 will be $1.

duni04:
I hate the unnecessary whinning in this article. See as a consumer, I won't patronise made in Nigeria textiles because they are of low quality and they are very scarce. As a producer I won't manufacture textiles in Nigeria because there's no power and the machinery to produce the textiles has to be imported at the current exchange rate and without access to credit facilities from banks. If we want a buoyant textile industry, we should give the manufacturers power and access to cheap credit. We should give the consumers reasons to purchase locally made textiles by improving on the quality of our local production, increasing the duty on Imported textiles and empowering the Customs to do their job and arrest smugglers.
Chikena!
And Mr OP, the exchange rate is not a means of measuring the buoyancy of a country or its economy. You should check how much a dollar exchanges for the Japanese yen. A weaker Naira is even an incentive to exporters as long as we reign in inflation. You can't be advocating for increased export oriented local production and a stronger Naira. Doesn't make sense.
All these emotion laden write ups will do us no good. Enough of the noise making already!

Isaacflow:
PMB..... Am short of words only God knows if it wont get up to 1 dollar to 2000 naira cos our ecomomy is getting worse every minute after all the lies they promise during campaign now we re reaping it, breeze blow fowl yansh open all hail GEJ

baum1:


Your previous points are strong. Well done. As for the highlighted, the poster is so so so on point. He is not advocating that a stronger naira will stimulate exports. What he is saying, by implication, is that consistent trade surpluses or declining trade deficits can help strengthen the naira and that is very true in many cases and makes plenty economic sense.

emmykk:
Give us true federalism and Nigeria will be Great again.
Allow every federating unit Hausa,Yoruba and Igbo to manage their own resources.

The current folding of hands by all the states waiting for the Niger Delta oil will not help.

imagine what does the 19 states of the north produce,what does the 6 six states of the west produce execpt for Lagos state and what do the 5 igbo states produce.

All the states waiting for oil money,until we go back to the days of cocoa,palm oil and groundnut pyramid let know 1 complain of falling naira