Akpan Ekpo, a former director of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has warned
the current administration not to allow the economic situation
deteriorate to the level of Zimbabwe.
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| President Buhari |
In an interview with
TheCable at Washington, Akpan said even Sani Abacha, the late military
dictator, allowed experts to run the economy.
Lamenting over the
situation when non-professionals are in charge of key ministries, Ekpo said the
government of President Muhammadu Buhari needs the assistance of a strong
economic management team.
“If you look at Nigeria’s
economic history in the last 56 years, there are some episodes where you could
say they appointed technocrats to manage the economy,” he said.
“But since 1999, there have
been problem because politics dominated the economy.
“The military, for some
reasons were able to recruit some technocrats. I can tell you that everything
about the Nigerian economy has been researched, documented and written about,
before 1999. They are on shelves.
“But when 1999 came, in
fairness to former president Olusegun Obasanjo, he tried in putting together
experts to macro-manage the economy. He brought people who were good. Then, he
had an economic team that constituted mainly of experts.
“Those experts co-opted
other experts to look at the economy. I think it continued up to the time late
president Yar’Adua. During Yar’Adua’s tenure, I was a member of the team.”
I TOLD OKONJO-IWEALA SHE WAS MAKING A MISTAKE
“After Yar’Adua it
continued, but with an error. I even told Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala that it was a
mistake to have an economic management team that included private sector
players and government players same time. You don’t do that.
“You have a different
forum where you meet businessmen and a different forum where the economic
management team meet. This is because when you are practicing capitalism, the
government tries to surprise the private sector, while the private sector tries
to predict the government.
“If you put all of them in
one room and government brings out a policy, they are rational to exploit it.
For example, if there is a policy on cement, a private sector person in the
economic management team would exploit it easily. So, you make life very easy
for them to make money.”
UNLIKE BUHARI, ABACHA ALLOWED
EXPERTS RUN THE ECONOMY
On the current
administration, Ekpo said: “This government is even not the same. What they
have now is a ministerial team. But they invite experts on ad hoc basis. I have
attended two of such meetings.
“But what they need is a
strong economic management team. Every country needs intellectuals to assist.
So, we need a strong economic management team to assist government.
“More so, when some people
running the key ministries are not in the profession that you need to look at
the economy.They are either core politicians who have not been involved in
running an economy for a long time.
“I will give you an
example. During the tenure of late General Sani Abacha, he appointed Chief
Anthony Ani as minister of finance. But Anthony said he is an accountant and
that he does not think he has what it took to run the economy alone.
“So, Abacha approved
for him a ministerial advisory committee. He brought in only economics and a
lawyer to drive the process during that process. Go and look at the
macro-fundamentals at that period. And there was a link between the ministerial
advisory committee and the national economic team headed by Prof. Sam Aluko.
“So, even Abacha who was a
dictator left the economy to be ran by experts and the economy did well then. I
was involved. In fact, I was the chairman of that ministerial committee in the
ministry of finance for four years. We ran the economy.”
IF RECESSION CONTINUES, NIGERIA
MAY END UP LIKE ZIMBABWE
Ekpo, who was
vice-chancellor at the University of Uyo, criticised the current foreign
exchange policy of the CBN, saying it encourages round-tripping.
“You can see that the
misalignment between the interbank and parallel market rates is too much. When
I last check, government was still the greatest supplier of foreign exchange,
and they give it to the banks to sell.
“Any bank official would be
rational and want to round trip. So, the gap is just too much. And that is
going to affect foreign direct investments. What you will have is hot money.
“So, when there is a
recession, you adopt what is called economic nationalism. So, let’s pray that
the economic recession does not continue for a long time, because if that
happens and we enter into a depression, we may just be like Zimbabwe or
Venezuela.”
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