Sanusi's Advise To Buhari Administration Is Right – Experts

Some experts have commended Emir Sanusi for his “timely” comment, urging President Buhari to as a matter of urgency change his policies, saying Nigeria needed to be proactive and creative to solve its challenges.

An economic analyst and Chief Executive Officer, Cowry Asset Management Limited, Mr. Johnson Chukwu, said the Federal Government and the economic management team had been reacting in silos to challenges facing the economy.

“We need to react in a more coordinated manner. We need to respond with a cocktail of solutions.



“It took us time to open up the economy to foreign investors. By the time we did, the foreign investors had moved on. The fuel subsidy that we removed was good, but it could have come with other actions that would have helped the economy.

“We need foreign borrowing in order to bring dollar liquidity back and stabilise the market. The President will need to set up an economic think tank that will come up with a detailed approach to tackle the problems,” he said.

Also, the Head, Research and Investment Advisory, SCM Capital, Mr. Sewa Suwu, said the current economic management team needed to move faster than the current pace.

He said, “The economic challenges are not peculiar to Nigeria, but all commodity exporting countries. The best way out of the current challenges is to spend our way out of it.

“We have a national problem and it is a time for all economists and experts to come up with ideas that can help us to get out of the challenges as a country. We need to come together as one and tackle the situation.”

The Director General, West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management, Prof. Akpan Ekpo, who noted that the government could not fix the country in one year, said, “What I will call a mistake is the delay in taking action; we call it lag structure in economics.

“For example, there was an unnecessary delay in passing the budget. There was an unnecessary delay in forming a cabinet. Those two major delays have been creating problem for the country.

“In February, some of us warned that we were on a tip of a recession with the rising unemployment, rising inflation and declining productivity.

“If at that point, they had implemented the budget and released money – because you must spend out of a recession – we would have avoided the recession. A budget of 2016 was passed on May 6; even as we speak, we don’t know how far they have gone with the implementation.”

An expert in Financial Economics at the University of Uyo, Prof. Leo Ukpong, said:
"Right now, what we need is to create jobs and keep people employed. I have not seen any clear-cut policy in that direction."