Clueless leadership caused Nigeria’s recession – Prof. Utomi

A FORMER presidential candidate, Prof
Pat Utomi, has said the current economic crisis
would have been avoided by the Federal
Government, if proper policy choices were made,
noting that the crash in oil prices was not enough
to have resulted in recession.

He noted that if government had borrowed
money against its assets, devalued early and
applied intelligent leadership, Nigeria would not
have been at a crossroad now.
Utomi, who said this, yesterday, in Lagos at the
2016 Men Summit convened by the Catholic Men
Organisation of the Holy Family Catholic Church,
FESTAC Town, said the collapse in oil prices ought
not to have plunged the country into crisis, if the
authorities had acted rightly.

He also took a retrospective look at most factors
that led to recession in Nigeria and submitted
that the attitude of the present government, in
the face of the dwindling oil prices, scared
investors away from the country.
His words: ‘’There is what we call the big man
hamburger quotient which economists use to
evaluate exchange rate. Macdonald hamburger in
London is exactly the way it is in New York. How
many naira will it take to produce this hamburger
in Lagos and how many pounds will it exactly cost
to produce it in London? This is what is called the
big man hamburger quotient.
“At that time, the difference in Nigeria’s nominal
exchange rate was there and because the major
revenue was oil, whose prices had gone down, all
that an intelligent leadership needed to do was to borrow against some assets, ensure they continue
to fund things, use strong determination to make
sure people don’t buy more than what they don’t
need because that is part of what happened and
ensure that there is confidence in the system so
that people will know that the people in charge
know what they are doing.
“That would have made people to start
transacting normally. But they said how can we
devalue? We will not devalue, people who have
money and who wanted to bring in money felt
that these people are about to make decision that
might jeopardise our money tomorrow.
So they didn’t bring it. Even oil companies were
not bringing back their receipts and Nigerians
who were exporting were not bringing back, so
there was a major crisis. Instead of the thing
devaluing by 6 percent, it went down to what we
are seeing. So it is self-inflicted and quality of
leadership.’’
Responding to a question on the fete that befell
defunct Bank PHB, Utomi said:’’ A country where
justice is abused. The Yardaus wanted to steal the
bank, they got CBN to devalue the bank so they
can get their foreign partners and take over the
bank. That was what happened. Regulatory
functions are well abused in Nigeria and it is still
going on.’’