Budget 2016: Buhari missed chance to change Nigeria’s fortune –Soludo

Former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Chukwuma Soludo has said that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration with the budget proposal for 2016 has missed an opportunity to set new standards for a post oil economy.

According to him, the budget had historic 37 per cent deficit to make recurrent expenditure higher than total revenue, and that it was not the way to go for a government with change as its mantra.

He stated this at the Daily Trust Dialogue held in Abuja with the theme: 50 years since 1966: Is Nigeria rising?

Other speakers at the event were Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Gen. Martin Luther Agwai, a former Chief of Defence Staff and a scholar; Dr. Mairo Mandara.

Soludo lamented that the nation had been taking 10 steps forward and 11 steps backward, urging leaders to rise to the challenge posed by the fact that the period of oil boom is over.

He stated that despite earning over one trillion dollars from oil over the years Nigeria has underperformed, even as he also noted, that the money earned from oil has only kept the looting elite united and organised while the nation is now the fifth among states classified as failed states.

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According to him, the 2016 budget was designed for sharing and consumption regarding the nation’s oil wealth and not necessarily for the development of the country’s dysfunctional system.

The former apex bank boss stated that he expected this year’s budget to be more innovative to defeat the old, bad ideas.

“To craft the new agenda, we must defeat the old agenda. We cannot make progress in the country with the tools and agenda of the old,” Soludo said, adding that the party is over, following the fall in the price of crude oil globally.

He said the government needs a coherent economic plan as well as the right political architecture, stressing that anything less than this would mean that the leaders are building on quicksand.

The Vice President on his part, said far from being a budget based on compassion the 2016 budget was designed to address the plight of over 120 million Nigerians who have been alienated from governance and living below poverty level.

“The budget is about the economic survival of these people, and if we don’t do it, we are only postponing the doomsday”, the Vice President said.

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