The Nigerian economy and Naira devaluation -By Oseni Oladimeji

There seems to be a growing anxiety among the Nigerian populace over the full or partial devaluation of the Naira occassioned by the free fall of crude oil price in the global market – this has resulted in Government not been able to meet up to its revenue target and therefore announcing austerity measures-the austerity measures to me is nothing but a feeble-minded approach,we still need to tackle the issues that have brought us up to this point.The Government by this singular action is simply making Nigerians pay for its seeming ineptitude and laziness.Why do you want to further impoverish Nigerians who have benefitted little or nothing from this clueless government?

The living standards of virtually all Nigerians has remained the same over the past years;and yet some people have conspired among themselves to further worsen the situation by misappopriating funds meant for executing developmental projects simply because they have an unrestrained access to the treasury. Nigeria is currently in a bad economic shape and will continue to be if something is not done urgently-because the demand for crude oil is dwinding globally.

Let us not forget that Crude-oil accounts for about 85% of Nigeria’s export earnings and as such a slight drop in crude oil price will nearly cripple Nigeria as we are seeing now. Many Oil producing nations are planning an exit from their dependence on the so-called black-gold but I’m in the dark as to what the Nigerian Government plans to do next-I’m pretty sure there is nothing they will do! They are comfortable with anything that can make Nigerians ‘weep’ as long as it has no direct effect on them.

The citizens of this great country need to brace up for hard times.No one needs to be told that the government is gradually failing in its responsibility to us. Nigerians therefore need to ponder on the question below and answer same truthfully and as sincere as possible.

Why are we consuming more, and producing less in Nigeria, causing the instability of the Naira in the process? I personally have two main reasons:

First, the rate at which the population grows far exceeds the rate at which we make money-this is largely due to a vast array of uneducated populace. The population of Nigeria is rising alarmingly on a daily basis.Rapid population growth, in the long term increases consumers not producers and keeps the people poor,in one way, because of the law of diminishing returns.The more the people we add on a fixed amount of land, the less output is added by each and every one that is added. This means that the amount of human beings we add are just some kind of ‘parasitic consumers’ who are of no value.

Second, we are all busy looking for someone to employ us; But who will employ who,when everyone is looking for someone to employ them? Increasing population shoots up the rate of unemployment therefore we must all discover our skills and talents and use it to our advantage.

I’ll end this piece with Psalm 30:5-For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: WEEPING MAY ENDURE FOR A NIGHT, BUT JOY COMETH IN THE MORNING.