Kedu ka ị ga-esi dozie enweghị ọrụ ma dọta ụlọ ọrụ ka ha tinye ego ma nọgide na Naịjirịa?

What will you do to create opportunities that encourage young Nigerians to stay and those in the diaspora to return? Answer: To curb brain drain, I will prioritize macroeconomic stabilization, business-friendly regulatory reforms, tax incentives for returnee-led businesses, and dedicated diaspora investment channels, and comprehensive security reforms to make living and investing in Nigeria safe and rewarding. Q5: Food is becoming unaffordable for many families. What will you do to bring down the prices of basic foods such as rice, beans and garri? Answer: My plan targets immediate yield expansion for local food staples by eliminating import duties on farm inputs, replenishing national strategic grain reserves to buffer prices during shortages, and lowering transport costs by subsidizing local fuel refining inputs.

The planned exit of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) from Nigeria after more than five decades of doing business in Nigeria underscores how horrific the environment has become for both local and foreign businesses. Sadly, many international firms have, in recent times, sold their assets and bid farewell to Nigeria after several years of operating in our country. These exits have led to further loss of jobs in an environment that is already bleeding jobs. We need to do a lot more not only to encourage investors to make Nigeria their preferred destination but also to encourage companies already operating in our land not to "japa." To this end, we must revamp our infrastructure, endeavour to enthrone a sustainable regime of energy security and retool our fiscal and monetary policy. -AA The planned exit of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) from Nigeria after more than five decades of doing business in Nigeria underscores how horrific the environment has become for both local and foreign businesses. Sadly, many international firms have, in recent times, sold their assets and bid farewell to Nigeria after several years of operating in our country.

2. A fixed exchange rate system would be out of the question. First, it would not be in line with our philosophy of running an open, private sector friendly economy. Secondly, operating a successful fixed-exchange rate system would require sufficient FX reserves to defend the domestic currency at all times. But as is well known, Nigeria’s major challenge is the persistent FX illiquidity occasioned by limited foreign exchange inflows to the country. Without sufficient FX reserves, confidence in the Nigerian economy will remain low, and Naira will remain under pressure. The economy will have no firepower to support its currency. Besides, a fixed-exchange rate system is akin to running a subsidy regime! 3. On the other hand, given Nigeria’s underlying economic conditions, adopting a floating exchange rate system would be an overkill. We would have encouraged the Central Bank of Nigeria to adopt a gradualist approach to FX management. A managed-floating system would have been a preferred option. In simple terms, in such a system, the Naira may fluctuate daily, but the CBN will step in to control and stabilize its value. Such control will be exercised judiciously and responsibly, especially to curve speculative activities.

4. Why control, you may ask. (i). Nigeria has insufficient, unstable, and precarious foreign reserves to support a free-floating rate regime. Nigeria’s reserves did not have enough foreign exchange that can be sold freely at fair market prices during crises. (ii). Nigeria is not earning enough US$ from its sales of crude oil because its production of oil has been declining. And, (iii). Nigeria is not attracting foreign investment in appreciable quantities. These are enough reasons for Nigeria to seek to have a greater control of the market, at least in the short to medium term when convergence is expected to be achieved. Tinubu’s new policy FX management policy was hurriedly put together without proper plans and consultations with stakeholders. The government failed to anticipate or downplayed the potential and real negative consequences of its actions The Government did not allow the CBN the independence to design and implement a sound FX Management Policy that would have dealt with such issues as increasing liquidity, curtailing/regulating demand, dealing with FX backlogs and rate convergence.

Nigeria is not working: One year of Tinubu is a cocktail of trial-and-error economic policies. On May 29, 2023, President Bola Tinubu raised the hopes of Nigerians with his pledge to “remodel our economy to bring about growth and development through job creation, food security and an end of extreme poverty.” Since then, Tinubu has also spoken about growing the economy at double-digit rates to US$1 trillion in six years, ending misery, and bringing immediate relief to Nigeria’s cost-of-living crisis. On listening to this, Nigerians must have breathed a sigh of relief after their experience with ex-President Buhari’s 8 years of economic misadventure. Tinubu laid out no plans for the ‘remodeling’ of the economy but soon embarked on a cocktail of policies to achieve it. In May 2023, he eliminated PMS subsidies, and a month later, the CBN implemented a new foreign exchange policy that unified the multiple official FX windows into a single official market. More policies followed in rapid succession: the tightening of monetary policy to reduce Naira liquidity, a hike in monetary policy rates, the introduction of cost-reflective electricity tariff, and a cybersecurity tax.

A Message to Nigerian Workers. On this Workers' Day, I want to speak directly to the men and women who wake up every morning and go to work in spite of everything: the civil servants who have not received their full entitlements, the traders whose goods no one can afford to buy, the factory workers whose employers are closing shop, the teachers and medical personnel holding together systems that government is failing to adequately fund. You are not invisible. Your suffering is not a statistic. It is real, it is documented, and it is a direct consequence of a trial-and-error policy choices made by those entrusted with the responsibility to serve you. Nigeria's working people did not cause this crisis. They did not vote for impoverishment. They voted for hope, and that hope was taken from them. They deserve leadership that spends the nation's resources on their welfare, not on opaque mega-projects that serve the well-connected. They deserve a government that measures its success by their living standards, not by the size of its spending, the growth of its debt, or the breadth of its patronage networks. Nigeria can and must do better. The resources exist. The talent exists. What is lacking is the will to govern for all Nigerians rather than for the few.