Economy: In defence of President Buhari

“I believe we also need prayers in this country. Why is it now that we have a president who is committed to good governance and accountability that we are confronted with paucity of cash? Why has the price of oil chosen this momentous time to plummet to this level? Even if the new government achieves complete diversification of the economy, will it fructify overnight, in one, two or three years? Why should it be at this time that we have a highly conscientious and honest central government that we should have this kind of financial situation as a country? So we need prayers in this country.”

The above extract is from my piece, “Lagos-Ibadan Expressway: The Amosun Intervention”, published in the papers in November, 2015.

Today, the Nigerian economy has now become a football match in which every compatriot usually assumes the role of a coach. Suddenly, every Tom, Dick and Harry has become an economist, taking to the guillotine the Buhari administration.

These trying times are actually the best period for political opportunists to engage in mobilisation of mass hysteria on poverty in the land, as if privation suddenly dropped from Mars or Jupiter to Nigeria. Was it President Buhari who forced oil prices to crash in the international market?  Is it Buhari that is sponsoring the militants blowing up oil and gas pipelines such that production plunged from 2.2 million barrels per day to 1.6 million, worse at the time oil rose to some $50 per barrel? Prices crashed, yet you had little or nothing to sell, and when prices began to rise, you still had little or nothing to sell. What magic will then bring money to your pocket?

Another vacuous claim of political opportunists, some of them in the garb of economists, is that Buhari has no economic team and direction? What direction does a mono-economy need other than diversification? Do we need to import economic experts from Mars or Jupiter before we know that the solution to the current economic difficulties is diversification of the economy?

There are no quick fixes, but we all should give our unalloyed support to the present government and play our part in order to restore the glory of Nigeria.

We must not allow political demagogues, economic revisionists and anti-democratic forces who are wolves in sheep’s clothing to change the narratives, as they have been doing in recent times in the media. We know all those who brought Nigeria to its knees economically. We should direct our anger to them while we encourage the new government of President Buhari to take us on the road to recovery.

• Soyombo Opeyemi,

densityshow@yahoo.com