The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Temitope Ajayi, and a former Deputy Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, Kingsley Moghalu, traded blames on the state of the nation’s economy under the administrations of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Moghalu Accusation
Moghalu had claimed in a series of tweets via his X handle on Wednesday, January3, that the nation’s economic state, which had experienced a downward trajectory in the past 40 years, only saw the light of the day “briefly” under the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
He added that the improved economy was also observed during subsequent PDP-led governments of the late Umaru Yar’Adua, and Goodluck Jonathan.
The former CBN deputy governor added that from 2015 till date, Nigeria has fallen under a “completely incompetent economic management”.
The tweet read: “Nigeria’s economic distress is simply part of a 40-year downward trajectory that was broken only briefly by the Obasanjo civilian presidency and to some degree under Yar’Adua/Jonathan (up to mid-2014).
“Ever since, especially from 2015, we fell under completely incompetent economic management and have not recovered.”
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FG Palliatives
The political economist called on the Federal Government to lay a real foundation for longer-term economic transformation.
According to him, “80% of Nigeria’s exports in 2023 was oil tells you we have yet to get serious”.
Moghalu noted that the presidential palliatives initiative was not a good economic tool to curb poverty, and consequently improve wealth distribution.
“Palliatives (just google the dictionary definition of the word) will never reverse poverty. Wealth is positively created,” he stated.
Moghalu, also criticised the appointments of the nation’s economic management team, stating that “real economic thinking is not happening, so economic transformation can’t follow.
“Like it or not, individuals in certain positions matter. Sanusi and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala made a huge difference in their roles. That’s because they had capacity.
“Their appointments went above politics of cronyism. The results, which is what matters more than sound and fury at the end of the day, followed”.
The tweet concluded: “May we recover one day. Like it or not, appointments have real consequences”.
Ajayi Reactions
Reacting to the tweets later in the day, President Bola Tinubu’s aide, Ajayi, admitted that the Obasanjo-led administration from 1999-2007 truly paved the way for some economic reforms, yet “Nigeria didn’t see any progress in infrastructural development” that would have a “direct bearing on the quality of life”.
Ajayi wondered how Moghalu and some others claimed that their era in government was the “golden era of competence” in the nation’s economic management.
Ajayi lamented how Moghalu and his former principal, Sanusi, at the CBN, couldn’t explain the whereabouts of the missing $20 billion in oil revenue, adding that “hundreds of millions of dollars were looted under various guises yet Moghalu wants us to believe that that period was the gold standard in economic management in Nigeria”.
“That period till 2015 was a period of trillions of unpaid salary and pension arrears.
“A period when contractors were owed hundreds of billions with thousands of abandoned and uncompleted projects,” Ajayi stated.
