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China
watch out,
India
watch out, and indeed the whole world should watch out – a giant is about to be awoken from slumber. There are certain things that are uniquely Nigerian and there is nothing anybody can do about it. Like
China
or
India
,
Nigeria
is the most populous of a race – in this case, the black race. What can you do about that? Nobody can wish that away, short of dropping the equivalent of ten atomic bombs on us. Forget about the internal squabbling. Our numbers, in black; our geographical location, which is in the centre of the world; our weather; our natural endowment; our religiousness; our pleasant nature that accommodates; our resilience, are all so unique - nobody else have all these on this earth. Oh, one more thing, we are Nigerians - they love to hate us. Secretly, individual Nigerian can be accommodated, but the world trembles at
Nigeria
’s potentials.
Nigeria
went to sleep on 28 July 1986 - the start of the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP). It was meant to lead us out of a temporary foray into the economic woods, but due to greed and selfishness, of all of us, it instead pushed 90% of Nigerians deeper into an economic forest. Only easily countable few managed to limp out of the economic forest, some of those, with their pockets bulging. Nobody can claim to have walked out of our economic forest without bruises, not even the rich. We all still have to generate our own electricity, most times. We still have to drive our previously-used vehicles and new cars on a sorry of a road. We still have to waste more productive time dialling a number than talk, in spite of GSM. We still need to be ferried abroad for medicals. The rail is dead, aviation unsafe, general security of life and property hangs in the balance. All of these are hinged on one thing and that is the ill-conceived variable exchange rate.
The national debate that in a sense was a charade, which preceded the introduction of SAP, opened my eyes. I was enthralled by the arguments put forward by Ayagi of Intercontinental Merchant Bank and Olashore of First Bank. When, after the debate, Babangida relieved the duo of their posts in their banks, I was greatly disappointed and knew the debate was ill-conceived. But, I knew little about economics and was helpless when all the money in my pocket and my savings were reduced overnight to a third of their previous value on 28 July 1986 due to the new variable exchange rate. I was not the only one. On arrival from a flight from the West Coast one afternoon, I went to a bookshop at the airport in
Lagos
and bought a book on economics. I was then in Nigeria Airways as a pilot. I poured myself into any book on economics. A colleague once asked, ‘What do you know about economics?’ I remember answering, ‘What did I know about flying? I got to read the books about them.’
Before long, I had gathered enough knowledge, though not formally, to deduce that economics is nothing but human psychology. That is why everybody, irrespective of status in any society, reacts the same way to the erosion of his or her wealth. Any situation, such as provided by variable exchange rate in an atmosphere that is suspect, would produce what
Nigeria
had gone through. I remember clearly, Ayagi, in particular, warning about SAP in the Nigerian context and not that SAP is not a good idea. We all know the level of trust in our society. So, I started arguments on economics among my peers. I could link the faulty variable exchange rate in
Nigeria
to every aspect in
Nigeria
– capital flight; closing down of factories; unemployment; the surge in religiousness; the rise of prosperity preaching preachers; exodus of Nigerians to foreign lands and many more. I even wrote a book about it - it forms the basis for The Devil Must Be Laughing.
Earlier, a friend said I could contribute better, if I should write, but I was not good at writing. So, I started practicing. I read a lot of books to see how people express themselves on paper. I did not know anybody in the press and besides, my writing was still not concise. A chance meeting with the then editor of the Financial Guardian at the Peninsular Club in
Victoria Island
one day changed all that. I told him how I felt about the exchange rate mechanism and he promised to publish what I wrote. After landing in
Abuja
on 11 January 1992, I was informed by the flight purser that some passengers wanted to see me. I was the captain of the flight and my name was announced. I did not know that the piece I wrote about the unproductiveness of our variable exchange rate came out that day in the Financial Guardian. Those who had bought that paper were surprised that their captain wrote about the economy, One of them asked, ‘what are you doing flying?’
I have since turned out to be a relentless advocate of reversal to what it used to be before SAP. My article in the Village titled “National Realisation Point” was actually devoted to that. I have had many more that were posted in the Village that advocated for the pegging of the naira to the American dollar. It is not rocket science. It is just that oil, which happens to represent 90% of
Nigeria
’s earning is already priced and sold in American dollar. So why distort the economy because of the remaining 10% that in any sense had been tottering ever since. I am inconsequential in all these and credit should go to the Ayagis in
Nigeria
– I am at best a foot soldier. In that article, I had prayed for a driver of our economic train that would realise that we are on the wrong economic track, apply the brakes and make a reversal if possible. I even wrote in another article that I will not vote for anybody that has a bank account outside
Nigeria
. We might, maybe by default, already have such driver in the person of Yar’adua. Kudos also goes to Soludo - I have always thought the economist turned banker is brilliant.
I plead for forgiveness for a look-like self aggrandisement; it is not meant to be and it actually is a vindication of what is right for
Nigeria
. Upon hearing the news, I wanted a bottle of Moet
Champagne to celebrate, but it was
for N6, 456 . Soludo said, come August 2008, that would be tagged N64.56 in new naira notes. That, is more like what it should be. Now that you have forgiven me, what is in stock for
Nigeria
? Plenty! Right now, I can imagine foreign investors from all over the world packing their bags in readiness to join our economic train. They can now invest the savings of the people in their countries in
Nigeria
, because Nigerians, particularly the rich, will now have their savings in
Nigeria
– within the confines of our borders. Developments are usually funded from savings, if you know what I mean. Nigerians and the world would be surprised at what could be achieved in,
Nigeria
, within a very short time just because of a fixed exchange rate to the American dollar. Don’t be surprised that there could even be buybacks of warehouses and factories in the immediate future from the present occupiers.
I am so ecstatic about Soludo’s announcement concerning the naira; not because of a personal gain, but because of my two little children. See, I was lucky to have grown up in
Nigeria
when there were opportunities laid out by the country’s founding fathers. Then suddenly, all opportunities dried out because of the illegal exportation of
Nigeria
’s wealth to foreign lands. I tried to rationalise why people would be so callous to do what they did through the illegal capital flight. As I began to know more about economics, my mind looms to some incredible dimensions. I then concluded that economics is more of human psychology that the mathematics. I started agreeing with what they say: People, whatever the race or colour, will always react the same way to the erosion of their wealth. Nigerians and foreigners that took their money out were only acting naturally. Each time I searched, in our context, for what is responsible, each time I always arrived at the same cause – the naira. We are not different after all from other peoples; we too put on our trousers, one leg at a time, just like others.
It is gratifying to know that Ayagi and his disciples have won the argument, though it took them 21 years. The whole scam of variable exchange rate was for the purpose of robbing the people of their wealth. Today, most of them are mega rich from doing nothing productive. With the naira back to its lost glory, all the economists can go on holidays; nothing will now stop Nigerians and
Nigeria
from matching forward. The zeros, at the end, that Soludo is cancelling from the naira represent the amount of money they robbed from the people. Who cares? The robbers can have it and enjoy it. Let’s cut our losses and run. The people should take solace in Yar’dua/Goodluck’s slogan of “Forward Ever, Backward never”, and move on. Yar’adua, I am afraid, has won my heart and at least Ayagi should be honoured for his steadfastness …God bless
Nigeria
!
Samuel Akinyele Caulcrick, the author of The Devil Must Be Laughing.
ISBN: 1-4241-2196-5
E-mail: saceekay@aol.com.
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Authors 
Posted by Robot| 15.08.2007 23:48