Refusing Recession

Mr Bayo Onanuga, the MD of NAN and his daughter recently conducted a survey and came to the conclusion that the rest of us 160 million Nigerians got our assessment of the economy under the watch of Buhari wrong. The seasoned journalist put his daughter on a London bound plane to find out if the flight was full or not, and the confirmation that the flight was full was enough premise to support his conclusion that our economy is after all not in recession.It clearly does not matter to Mr. Onanuga how much an economy ticket of less than 6 hours flight cost? Or the mission of the passengers and the opportunity cost of being aboard the flight. I hope it does interest Mr. Onanuga that the people flying these days are those relocating, teeming government appointees like him who fly at taxpayers expense and our failed leaders and their families. 

As at last week Thursday at the Murtala International Airport, dollar was going for N415, bag of rice was N20,000 and a bag of flour was N11,000 at the local market. Most of  our federating states still do not agree on an N18,000 minimum salary for workers and those that agreed are not paying. Some of the states are heavily into salary arrears, while few states have resolved into reducing hours and days of work in order to cut cost. Manufacturers Association of Nigeria has b

buckled and folded under the pressure of foreign exchange and government will rather subsidize forex for pilgrims than jump-start the economy through local production. These are all too obvious facts to be dismissed.

Regardless of the cause of the state of the nation, I sympathize with Mr. President, he probably would be regretting not having retired with his cattle in Daura. He has recovered a lot of money in his sole battle with corruption but he still cannot release fund for capital and developmental projects because it may soon find its way back into the hands of those who the loot was recovered from in the first place. This has also decimated the fact that we are not earning revenue, not saving and hopelessly in debt.

From Mr. Onanuga's vantage position, you expect him to be aware of all these healthy indices pointing to our sick economy, but, if he chose to turn a deaf ear, we owe him the responsibility of sign language. Sadly, we all know that Mr. Onanuga knows that we know what he cannot divulge for the safety of his job and the welfare of his high flying daughter.