Ripples at the Presidency as Soludo, Sanusi bomb Buhari on economy

Obinna Ezugwu

Two of Nigeria’s foremost economists and hitherto supporters of the administration, Professor Charles Soludo and His Eminence, Mohammed Sanusi, the Emir of Kano, have taken swipe at President Muhammadu Buhari over his poor handling of the economy.

In their various speeches earlier in the week, the two former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governors decried the country’s rapidly declining economy under the present administration and advised the President to change or risk ending up a failure.

Speaking in Kaduna State on Thursday at the Progressive Governors Forum’s 4th Progressive Governance Lecture series with the theme: “Building the Economy of States, Challenges of Developing Inclusively-Sustainable Growth,” Soludo who served as CBN governor under former President Olusegun Obasanjo observed that the country was facing unprecedented and tremendous political and economical challenges with global and local dynamics.

He warned that if the country was not de-strangulated from the hold of the Federal Government to allow states exercise a measure of control over their resources, things will get worse.

“Inclusive and sustainable growth cannot be achieved without conscious efforts to deconstruct the dynasties of poverty and maximise states and Nigeria’s comparative and competitive advantage,” he said.

“Nigeria is not secured and can be made politically sustainable through the de-strangulation of the hold of the Federal Government over states.

“I, therefore, recommend the restructuring of the economy from consumption-driven to production-based and consistency in micro-economic policies.

“Encouraging fiscal federalism in ways that allow states to have greater control of their resources, evolution of a master plan for mass export-oriented industrialisation that answers the economic questions and realities of today. He called on

“APC states to develop a peer review mechanism to track, measure and share knowledge, which will distinguish APC states from non-APC states.”

In his own speech during the 15th meeting of the Joint Planning Board and National Council on Development Planning, the Emir of Kano cautioned Buhari against  repeating the mistakes made by former President Goodluck Jonathan so his administration does not end up in failure like that of his predecessor, just as he criticized the president’s penchant for blaming Jonathan for the country’s problems.

“If this government continues to behave the way the last government behaved, we will end up where Jonathan ended. You may not like it but that is the truth. You have to listen,” he told Buhari.

Sanusi faulted the administration’s forex policies which he said has created instant billionaires, noting that it was wrong and unsustainable.

“You don’t have to be an economist to know that any system that allows you to sit in your garden, and with a telephone call, make one billion naira without investing a kobo, that system is wrong. It is unsustainable.

“And just so we are not always blaming the previous administration. We have also made mistakes in this administration. We have started retracing our steps or we have to retrace those steps.

“And if we fall into the same holes that we fell into the last time where the government is always right… If a policy is wrong, it is wrong. Nothing will make it right and it has to be changed.”

The former CBN Governor equally accused the president of appointing quacks as economists.

“Many of them are not economists. They are demagogues,” he said.

“Look, I’m not going to change. I am never going to be political. I will never tell people what they like to hear. There is nothing we are facing today that we did not know will happen. That is the truth. We made mistakes, many of them deliberate. We ignored every single warning.

“If you take a brand new car, and give a driver who doesn’t have a license to drive it and you have an accident, you really can’t say you are surprised unless you are some kind of idiot.”

The administration had since reacted to the Emir’s criticisms saying that it will not raise issues with him as a result.