The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has reviewed Nigeria’s economic development, particularly in the last 50 years, and concluded that “the country has receded.” According to Emefiele who appeared before the Senate for screening in respect of his re-appointment, times ahead would be very tough and rough. The Senate on Thursday confirmed Emefiele’s re-appointment, with Senate president Bukola Saraki urging him to “use this opportunity to continue to provide support to ensure that the economy of our country continues to improve and address the important area of ensuring microeconomic stability.”
But the CBN governor who has been at the head of the apex bank since 2014, expressed disappointment that Nigeria had not recorded the kind of progress it ought to have recorded in the past 50 years. Comparing Nigeria to an Asian country he recently visited, Emefiele noted that: “I entered that country happy but I came out of the country sad. Sad because I could see the level of development that the country has achieved over the last 50 years. And I cast my mind back and look at my country Nigeria and asked: what have we achieved?’ “This is what gives me the push that at my age of 57, I saw this country when it was good. I am looking at the country today and I am saying ‘I don’t want to say it is bad but I want to say that we have a lot of work to do because the country has, no doubt, receded.”
Emefiele also expressed worries about Nigeria’s population growth rate without viable economic base as well as serious propensity for improvement. “We just came back from the IMF/World Bank programme in April. And in the World Bank’s/IMF’s World Economic Outlook, Nigeria is positioned as a country whose population will grow and rise to over 425 million people by 2050. That will present Nigeria as a country with the third largest population in the world after China and India, and indeed surpassing the United States of America in population.
“I worry and I do think that we all should worry that a lot of work needs to be done to make sure that we are able to put in place policies that will make life good for these 425 million people when we are the third largest population in the world.” He expressed optimism that the CBN might be able to reverse the trend. “We from the CBN, from the monetary policy side, have come to the realization that using the instrumentality of the Anchor Borrowers Programme where access to credit is being provided to our masses all over the country, will be a way to generate employment and boost economic activity amongst our rural population.”
The CBN governor lamented what he described as willful disrespect and sabotage of government economic policies, calling for prayers to reverse the ugly trend in the economy. “I thank you for praying for me because we need it. I say this because the road ahead is still rough and very tough. But I want to appeal to all Nigerians that a time comes in the history of a country where you have to learn to respect the policies and laws of a country. Part of the problem that we have seen in Nigeria is lack of respect for the policies of this country. Nigeria is very good at putting in place policies that are sound and workable but implementation has always been almost zero. And it is arising because we see sabotage activities. We see people, when policies are made, when they pick up the pieces of paper about the policy, what they think about is how do we circumvent this policy?”
Emefiele was first appointed by former Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan in 2014 and his first tenure is expected to end in June 2019. Following the renewal of his appointment for the next five years, the CBN governor will have to balance fighting inflation and propping up the currency against pressure to boost an economy that’s expanding slower than emerging-market peers.
In another development, the CBN has set up a committee for the revival of the country’s cotton, textile and garment industry, with the mandate to revive and set up a minimum of 50 textile firms by 2023. The apex bank had in March announced an immediate restriction of textile importers from accessing foreign exchange from the official windows in a clear bid to discourage further importation.
Emefiele, while inaugurating the committee Thursday, expressed concern that the country loses $2 billion annually to textile smuggling and export, stressing that it was time the country revived the sector in order to take advantage of the massive opportunities therein. He said the Textile Revival and Implementation Committee (TRIC) had the responsibility of resuscitating the country’s cotton belt, identify textile clusters, improve cotton production nationwide and boost power supply to textile firms across the clusters. The Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, Kaduna State Deputy Governor, Bala Barnabas, and Jigawa State Deputy Governor, Ibrahim Hassan were present at the inauguration.
