Let me make it clear so we understand.
We are broke….in US dollar terms.
We can print Naira and pay salaries but we cant print dollars to fund imports.
So we need dollars….
What have we done?
1. We stopped dollars leaving Nigeria. We exited JP Morgan Bond index, we scrapped Domiciliary accounts…we restricted Naira debit card spending abroad..etc etc..FAIL
2. we created a market to attract dollars back to Nigeria. ….so CBN created an Interbank forex market…FAIL
We are in effect abandoned Investment and remittances inflows and have gone after debt…so there is a package of $29.9b in debt…
If that fails…we have to do IMF. So this is not PMB v NASS…its economic survival.
A local company like Erissco Tomato is now leaving Nigeria. ..because they cant get dollars to import..they will now import tomato from China. … (meanwhile our tomatoes will rot away)
Make no mistake, there is nothing wrong with debt or deficits…..but this administration spent its international goodwill chasing “looted funds”…and not enough in terms of attracting Investment via laws and policies.
Its extremely difficult to get a Nigerian vusa
Mr Mark Zuckerberg was here….he went straight to Yaba not to Abuja…he was not being political. ..he was just going to where he saw growth….
If the administration claims they invited him..What policies did they put in place to attract his funds?
His lawyers will informs him Nigeria will soon tax Facebook 9% via the proposed internet tax ….his lawyer will also advise him that a Nigerian lawmaker is suing MTN and NCC over a fine….Yet we believe Zuckerberg will discount this because we have 180m warm bodies…why did you think he went to Kenya?
My point? We have not explored fully how to attract investment and Remittances. ..this loan is a confirmation we have thrown in the towel.
In summary, we are dollar broke…we need dollars from either the Euro-bond or the IMF
yes its that bad….
Solutions? I Have written on many…eg Focus on remittances. .we get $25b a year…if you create a product to target Nigerians abroad. ..we can fund our current account deficit
Its our problem, we can fix
