Buhari convenes national economic conference to address Nigeria’s problems

Friday February 26, 2016

As advised by Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari has approved the commencement of a national economic conference.
Soyinka had last week, made a public appeal to Buhari to summon an emergency economic meeting to address the nation’s economic issues- the dwindling value of naira, the crash of crude oil prices and the combined effects on government revenue.

The Nobel Laureate had said: “The President should call an emergency economic conference with experts to be invited – consumers, producers, labour unions, university experts, professors, etc. I think we really need an emergency economic conference, a rescue operation, bringing as many heads as possible together to plan the way forward.”

The national economic conference is expected to bring national stakeholders together to proffer solutions to the current economic challenges bedeviling Nigeria.
A senior government official was reported to have made the disclosure of a possible commencement of the economic conference on Thursday, February 25, to a group of journalists in Abuja.
The government source was said to have revealed that the prospective economic conference has been tentatively slated for March 10 and 11.

The subject of the national conference was first discussed at the 65th National Economic Council meeting held on January 28- which was presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
According to the source quoted by Punch Newspapers, while deliberating the prospective national conference, the NEC members called for a comprehensive conference, that will be attended by representatives of all the states and the Federal Government.
President Buhari is expected to declare open the conference and also fully participate to an extent, in the discussions.

“The NEC retreat, as is being called by the Federal Government and the states, becomes imperative amid dwindling oil prices with a direct and significant impact on the money now available for federal allocation and sharing between the FG, states and local government councils.”

“For instance, the FG states and local governments shared a sum of N370.4bn a few days ago for the month of January 2016, which is a drop of more than N17bn from the N387.8bn shared the previous month of December last year. That could be compared for instance with what was shared in January 2014, which was N629bn and N503.6bn the previous December, both higher significantly than the present situation.”

“Another concern of the FG and the states necessitating the economic conference is the drop in foreign reserves of the country, which is now already below $30bn and compelling the CBN to adopt tough forex measures, including the ban on certain items from forex funding and rationing. The depreciation of the value of naira has also become an attendant impact of the foreign exchange scarcity.”

“It is interesting that a respectable Nigerian (Soyinka) recently raised the idea of a national economic conference earlier this month, the same idea that had been decided by members of NEC at their January meeting. It shows there is indeed a wide consensus on the idea.”

“The President has already set the tone for frugality in spending by cutting off routine security votes among other cost-cutting measures. Besides, the idea of a Zero-Based Budgeting and Treasury Single Account are parts of the attempt by the Federal Government to tighten public revenues and finance.”