Only if there was honor among thieves!

In response to the thread by TonyeBarcanista, it is important to constantly remind him and those like him who have demonstrated to be gifted with short memory, how and why we are in the sorry state we are.

Without wasting time, let’s liken Nigeria to a young family man who worked for sixteen years on very decent monthly salary of N1,000,000. In the sixteen years he earned N1M monthly, the said man has acquired taste for luxury life, living in a duplex in Ajah Estate with all the good things life could offer. This man was living large and had little or nothing in savings. Then one day, he lost his high-paying job and could only manage to secure another one which offers a third of what he used to earn. His new job only pays N300,000 monthly!

Without being told or advised by anyone, the man must realize that he can no longer house his family in the Ajah duplex they’d lived for sixteen years even if there was savings let alone when there is no reasonable savings. He must therefore scale down on EVERYTHING about his living and that of his family. He will need to change his children’s school. He will need to move into a 2 or 3 bedroom flat in Ikorodu or Agege. He will need to ride a smaller car. If his family used to go on weekly/monthly picnic, that also must stop. His and his family choice of food will change. In fact, he must engage more in DIY (Do It Yourself) than ever before for some tasks. Such man will have no one to blame for needing to scale down on his living except himself!

If we all agree that the man in the example above must cut back on his spending with a lot of sacrifices, there should be no reason why any reasonable person will fail to understand why Nigeria is in the current economic mess or what sacrifices Nigeria must make to weather the storm.

OBJ, with all his flaws, managed to build decent external reserves ($45bn ), created and built the excess crude account (above $20bn) for rainy days and was able to hand over good economy to Yar’Adua. Yar’Adua was on the same trajectory before his creator decided to take him away.

GEJ inherited $47bn in foreign reserves plus another $20bn+ in ECA. During the over five years he spent as president, crude oil which is the major source of income to Nigeria (responsible for more than 90% or our dollar earnings) sold for an average of $100 per barrel, yet the hugely incompetent man from Otuoke found a way to plunge the reserves to an abysmal level of $29bn as at the time of his exit and went on borrowing spree (which was also looted) even when there was no need to. In fact, GEJ and his gang r@ped Nigeria without mercy such that the FG had to borrow money to pay its workers in Nov 2014 and March 2015 just because crude price crashed from $100 to $76 a barrel. Sane minds can only imagine how such regime could have fared, or how much we would have suffered, if they were in charge of our affairs when crude crashed further to $27 a barrel.

Let’s not even talk about the ECA which his supporters will be quick to blame the governors for asking it to be shared. Though they will pretend not to know that the request of the governors made perfect sense for the fact that GEJ and Ngozi were fond of stealing from the account which jointly belonged to the FG and the states, they know in their mind that there argument lacks merit.

Is there anything happening in Nigeria today that was not foreseen, predicted or that we were not warned about? The answer is a resounding NO.

Let us refresh our memory with the warnings and predictions about today’s hardship and economic woes perhaps a few minds will be more objective and more reasonable.

1. OBJ warned Jonathan in Nov 2014: Extracts from the report:

"Sooner or later, the Naira will have to be drastically devalued without any advantage to our one commodity economy but with horrendous disadvantage to already impoverished Nigerians. We will all sink deeper in poverty except for those who have corruptly stashed money abroad and who will start to bring such illegal and illegitimate funds back home to harvest more Naira. All the economic gains of recent years and the rebuild of the middle class may be lost.”

“In the end, more businesses will close down, business men and women, entrepreneurs and investors will incur more debts. Foreign investors may temporarily stop investing in a downturn economy.
“Because of the Naira depreciation, workers, particularly in the public sector, will ask for pay increase, which may be justified but will sink us deeper in the swamp.
“The scenario, which may sound alarmist, is hard to imagine but the signs are there and it would appear that those who should act are dancing slow foxtrot while their trousers are catching fire”.
http://thenationonlineng.net/obasanjo-warns-jonathan-economy-is-in-big-trouble/


2. Sanusi, the then Governor of Central Bank warned too!

“Over 20 billion dollars unremitted to the federation account, and if nothing is done, by 2015 upward Nigeria will know what economic crisis is.”

When he was invited by the Senate to substantiate his claim, he said"

“It is established that out of the 67 billion dollars crude shipped by NNPC between January 2012 and July 2013, $47 billion was remitted to the Federation Account. It is now up to the NNPC to prove that $20 billion unremitted either did not belong to the federation or was legally and constitutionally spent. There is no dispute that $20 billion out of the $67 billion has not been paid into any account with the CBN,” he said.
http://icirnigeria.org/sanusi-insists-20-billion-is-missing-nnpc-denies-allegation/

We all know how Sanusi the whistle blower was sacked by the fisherman.


3. Oby Ezekwesili sounded the alarm bell in 2013: “Our reserve is depleted and our savings are squandered. Our nation is in trouble.”
She later stated: “The key FACT is that even by the time of that crisis when Soludo had to defend the Naira with our Foreign Reserve, he spent about $15b of it and still left behind about $45b when he departed as Central Bank Governor in 2009!!!
Now imagine that since that time oil prices have averaged between $95-$100 per barrel and we export an average of 750 million barrels per annum. How then can the Foreign Reserve only now be starting to grow back to the same size it was in 2009 after such hefty earnings of the last 4 years? The FG numbers do not add up at all and we need to know why!
The citizens need an explanation and that’s why I called for accountability. It is simply a patriotic call which should not result in the name calling by officials of government."

http://dailypost.ng/2013/03/08/oby-ezekwesili-now-that-sanusi-lamido-sanusi-has-admitted-fiscal-leakages/


4. Jonathan Lacked Political Will to Save – Ngozi Okonjo Iweala

And madam Gele finally agrees to her and her boss’ gross incompetence by saying:

The former finance minister and World Bank president, who spoke on “inequality, growth and resilience,” with Chile as an example of a country with a saving culture, said:

“We tried it in Nigeria, we put in an oil price based fiscal rule in 2004 and it worked very well. “We saved $22 billion because the political will to do it was there. And when the 2008 /2009 crisis came, we were able to draw on those savings precisely to issue about a five per cent of GDP fiscal stimulus to the economy, and we never had to come to the Bank or the Fund. “This time around and this is the key now, you need not only to have the instrument, but you also need the political will. In my second time as a finance minister, from 2011 to 2015, we had the instrument, we had the means, we had done it before, but zero political will. “So we were not able to save when we should have. That is why you find that Nigeria is now in the situation it is in, along with so many other countries.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/04/nigeria-had-no-political-will-to-save-under-jonathan-okonjo-iweala/
For the “video or Idontbelieve it” crew, it is available on YouTube as well.

[b]Now that we have seen that today’s economic mess was created by GEJ and his thieving gang, it makes no sense for anyone to blame PMB for the current situation. If anything, PMB deserves commendations for being able to provide bailouts to states owing salaries before he came on board, for being able to provide additional budget support due to reduced allocation to state, for being able to increase our foreign reserves despite that crude price is still at around $50 per barrel, for being able to build roads that those who earned billions in dollars couldn’t touch, for being able to start N-Power project employing hundreds of thousands unemployed youths, for being able to complete abandoned Kaduna-Abuja rail project, for being able to restore life in the NE that was ravaged by Boko Haram due to GEJ’s incompetence, for being able to bring some past looters to justice (Dasuki, Andrew Yakbu, Diezani, Bafarawa, Akpobolokemi, etc), for being able to restore some sanity in our ultra-corrupt judiciary, for ending fuel subsidy scam, for working towards self-sustenance in rice and other staple food production, for working to make Nigeria refine her own crude locally by 2019, etc., etc.[/b]

GEJ and his gang of looters raped Nigeria without using condom or any form of protection. The product of such violation is today’s economic hardship.

Had PMB not become president, Nigeria would have completely failed. I have no doubt about that happening and it’s based on what have now been revealed in the numerous looting of our common wealth.


God Bless PMB/VPYO
God Bless Nigeria

Its sad.

GOD alone will judge Jonathan.

Looting is our major problem. Even though it is basic, it is complex. For instance, monthly forex demand under Obasanjo was below $1 billion, due to lack of broad industrialization and low commerce, when compared to recent time.

However, Nigeria was generating $105/b on the average for about 5 years under GEJ, with a low forex demand when compared to what we are currently experiencing. The question is why was there no diversification plan, infrastructure to support growth and encourage foreign investments? Yet, there were no savings.

In 2013, Nigeria generated about $33 billion (Q2) from crude oil, only $2 billion made it to the foreign reserves. Another hiding truth is the fact that GEJ administration actually used about $26 billion to support lower exchange rate in 2013, even though oil price was at a record high, there was no succinct policy for economic growth. That was one of the reasons we were able to deceive JPmorgan into listing Nigeria bond on emerging market Index. It was a bubble created by oil boom but burst when oil prices plunged.

Presently, Nigeria's monthly forex demand stood at $4.8 billion and $1.2 billion on a weekly basis, whereas the nation is generating between $600 million-$700 million weekly. How do you meet such demand when past administration have no substantial savings or build vibrant non-oil sector to augment oil revenue?

Lastly, an economy is like a 'blockchain.' Its impossible to fix just one block and expect a perfect value chain. It's a process.

Truth234:
Looting is our major problem, still reading

try to catch these looters and you'll find their supporters crying witch-hunt. The case of corruption fighting back

TonyeBarcanista and his crew, I need you guys here. Let's argue!

Why do you people feel or see the need to write long epistles about a government / politicians who don't give any fvck about you? Will this long write up change d sorry state of the country?


Young men, speed your time on meaningful worthwhile stuffz not defending something that is totally undefendable( if Ders really any word like that) .

Boleyndynasty2:
Why do you people feel or see the need to write long epistles about a government / politicians who don't give any fvck about you?

This is not about any politician. It's about separating facts from lies and distortions

Let me ask you a few questions to debunk your narrative.

Lalasticlala Mynd44 Seun, hope you guys will treat this one equally too.

PassingShot:

This is not about any politician. It's about separating facts from lies and distortions

. Good luck separating facts from lies with Tonyebarcanista

hucienda:
Interesting to have opposing schools of thought discuss - in a healthy and mature manner - political developments in Nigeria on these boards once a while.

I may or may not agree with the OP, but it's his PoV.

Nice on OP on the rejoinder.

We can talk about what the present government is doing right or not doing right but it's wicked and amounts to turning logic on its head to blame it for the current economic woes.

Boleyndynasty2:
. Good luck separating facts from lies with Tonyebarcanista

Not for his own sake. He surely knows what he's doing is for politics being a politician.

It is for those he wants to misguide and deceive. For our common good.

Buhari Media Centre (BMC) crew reporting live from Utako, FCT.

By their fruits fingers you shall know them.

Yes the past government was wasteful and that was why they lost the election. You made promises of changing things and making them better, well let's leave that for Nigerians to decide.
This government has spent close to two years in office and they've not delivered on their promises or agenda in short they are making things worse with unnecessary policies causing uncertainty and panic in the system. I don't care about political parties, all Nigerians want are basic amenities and things that would make our life improved.
I know that you are writing to defend your paycheck and stomach but you and others like you are the biggest problem, supporting very useless governments and policies even though you could see the negative effect of such policies around you.
Why would a president wait till 6 months to choose his cabinet, worse still this is one of the most inexperienced, unqualified, and outrageous cabinet ever, If you want to copy China policy of Mao's time, you should also provide the zeal to educate the masses and actually invest on internal industrialisation, if you are controlling FOREX and the use of foreign products, why not be a beacon and rather improve our health sector so that he wouldn't have to travel for medical tourism thereby saving our foreign exchange and boosting the confidence of our local health sector.
As I said earlier, I don't care about any party but it pains me when people like you would call *A* *H*.

PassingShot:
TonyeBarcanista and his crew, I need you guys here. Let's argue!

who is arguing with you when rice is 20k

Comot for here jare

luvinhubby:
Buhari Media Centre (BMC) crew reporting live from Utako, FCT.

By their fruits fingers you shall know them.

Exactly what I had in mind.
This particular BMC staff does not live in Nigeria.
People failed to realize that 2015 was an ethnic struggle.
The earlier people realize that the problem is bigger than APC or PDP, the better.
Nigeria needs reorientation and restructuring.
The current system is designed to fail, encourage corruption and injustice.

After all the long epistle, the summary is who multiplied Nigerians suffering?

Ans - Buhari.

hucienda:


I think the current recession started at the tale end President Jonathan's administration - but worsened at a frightening trend under President Buhari.

But, hey that's just my PoV. I maybe wrong or right.

It couldn't have been better immediately under PMB. The damage will run its course before things return to normal.

It could have been worse than this if GEJ had been re-elected based on the facts already stated above.

PassingShot:

Not for his own sake. He surely knows what he's doing is for politics being a politician.

It is for those he wants to misguide and deceive. For our common good.

You are the biggest hypocrite here for supporting Babachir Lawal after his indictment by the senate



Hide your head in shame because if your crew members like modath and beremx have seen your hypocrisy

Nukualofa:
who is arguing with you when rice is 20k

Comot for here jare

It means you didn't read the article.

The situation is all about cause and effect. You can't sow beans and harvest yam. It can't happen.

I would have done this but long lost the zeal to write articles due to the preponderance of stupidity on the politics board these days; seems some alien beings who lack the capacity to think like normal humans do have hijacked the board and you see them crawling all over threads, messing them up soon after they are created.

Great rejoinder Passingshot. Much respect as always. Keep that flame burning.

PassingShot:

It couldn't have been better immediately under PMB. The damage will run its course before things return to normal.

It could have been worse than this if GEJ had been re-elected based on the facts already stated above.

Oga buhari has not done anything to show that he is better than GEJ. Go back to your cubicle and try to buy a standing fan for that your office.



You are just sentimental because of religion

Nukualofa:
You are the biggest hypocrite here for supporting Babachir Lawal after his indictment by the senate



Hide your head in shame because if your crew members like modath and beremx have seen your hypocrisy

You obviously lack the capacity to even understand my position on Babachir.

Anyway, you're noticed. You can now exit.

PassingShot:

It couldn't have been better immediately under PMB. The damage will run its course before things return to normal.

It could have been worse than this if GEJ had been re-
elected based on the facts already stated above.

Speculation

Rice was 9,000 per bag before Buhari, today it's 20,000, that is all that matters to 170 million Nigerians.

PassingShot:

It couldn't have been better immediately under PMB. The damage will run its course before things return to normal.

It could have been worse than this if GEJ had been re-elected based on the facts already stated above.

It would have been better neither Buhari nor Jonathan were elected.
There were other people on the ballot.

Nukualofa:
who is arguing with you when rice is 20k

Comot for here jare

Now this is funny.

Boss, abeg make we just discuss to enlighten ourselves economically and politically.

Nukualofa:
Oga buhari has not done anything to show that he is better than GEJ. Go back to your cubicle and try to buy a standing fan for that your office.



You are just sentimental because of religion

My cubicle office can make me employ you on salary of more than N100k monthly.

You need job? Send your CV to passingshot@gmail.com

omenkaLives:
I w[s]ould have done this but long lost the zeal to write articles due to the preponderance of stupidity on the politics board these days; seems some alien beings who lack the capacity to think like normal humans do have hijacked the board and you see them crawling all over threads, messing them up soon after they are created.

Great rejoinder Passingshot. Much respect as always. Keep that flame burnin[/s]g.

Done what? The truth about people like you is that they can't eat their humble pie and tellus that they were deceived by the broom wwielding demons of Change.


Buhari has showed us that you can fail in 1984 and also fail in 2015 and you will be applauded by zoneBs