Politics

Nigeria now in depression, may remain till 2020 unless… –Agbakoba

Published

8 years ago

September 7, 2016

Nigeria now in depression, may remain till 2020 unless... --Agbakoba

Former President of Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Dr Olisa Agbakoba (SAN), has said that Nigeria has gone from recession into depression and may not come out of it till 2020.

According to him, Nigeria can only come out of its present hopeless economic crisis if only the Federal Government takes hold of the banking sector and apply more regulatory control, among other measures.

He said “A recovery path is possible by the Second Quarter of 2017 (Q2 2017) with vigorous implementation of a new economic model, otherwise, this recession cycle may/will extend up to Fourth Quarter of 2020 (Q4 2020).”

He also called on Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government to return the Treasury Single Account to the commercial banks and put in place a new supervisory agency to monitor them, advising that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) should focus its attention on formulating monetary policies.

The Maritime and human rights lawyer stated this in a statement he made available to journalists in Lagos. He posited that President Buhari’s administration has no economic team and must constitute one made up of experts, if he plans to turn the present economic mess around.

Part of the statement read, “President Buhari must reverse the anti-austerity and tight money, as the G-20 nations all now agree; use all policy tools and embrace fiscal stimulus; adopt the Keynesian economic model of massive government spending on public works; reducing the raging inflation at 17 per cent in medium term; reduce the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) to single digit- 5 per cent Quantitative Easing and effectively implementing the 2016 Budget to reflate the economy.”

“Nigeria must spend its way out of recession; establish a National Treatment Policy-fiscal and trade protection Policy establish urgently a Development and Guarantee Bank; prepare Public Sector Borrowing Requirement, PSBR and borrow as our debt Ratio can sustain this, as well as develop Assets securitisation.”

“Consequently, the Federal Government must limit the CBN to Monetary Policy and take away banking supervision to the new Prudential Regulatory Authority, PRA and banking ethics to the Financial Conduct Authority, FCA. If the banks focus on lending and not trading, money will flood the system for productive value. More so, there is need to create a debt factor market to soak up non-performing loans of banks now at 12 percent and in excess of N20 trillion.

“President Muhammadu Buhari must as a matter of urgency, carefully study Roosevelt’s new deal that got the US out of the Great Recession (Depression) in the 1930s.

“A recovery path is possible by the Second Quarter of 2017 (Q2 2017) with vigorous implementation of a new economic model, otherwise, this recession cycle may/will extend up to Fourth Quarter of 2020 (Q4 2020).”

By Ebere Ndukwu …

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