By Dele Sobowale

“It is expected that based on the implementation of the Vision 20:2020 Economic Blueprint, which again goes to the root of resource management, the nation’s GDP should be growing at about 14 per cent per annum from 2010 to 2020, to realize this vision.

The unfortunate truth of the matter is that almost three years after the formulation of that plan, the economy is still growing at about seven per cent largely because of persistent inefficiency in resource allocation and management”.

Mr Olusegun Aganga, Minister of Trade and Investment, at University of Uyo.

Wonders never cease. Just when I thought that everybody in President Jonathan had become irredeemably wedded to the fraud called Vision 20:2020 – a fraud which a former Head of State, from the Southwest, recently endorsed, Mr Segun Aganga had finally let the cat out of the bag.

Hereafter, anybody who pronounces that Vision 20:2020 is achievable should be branded a liar. What Aganga had said is not different from what I had written on the subject several times. For the “vision” to be realized, the nation’s economy must grow at close to 14 per cent, uninterrupted, from 2009 to 2020.

Not only have we failed to grow at even 10 per cent; each year we fail, increases the annual percentage grow rate that must be achieved for subsequent years – for the scam to work.

President Goodluck Jonathan

The Chief  Priest of the “Voodoo” economics underlying the falsehood of Vision 20:2020; meaning those who knew the truth all along, but chose to continue to deceive Presidents Yar’Adua and Jonathan is Dr Shamsudeen Usman, Minister for National Planning. Indeed for a PhD holder in Economics and a reputed banker, Dr Usman had done a disservice to the Presidents, to Nigeria and lastly to his own reputation.

Ask any banker at what interest rate you must grow a deposit of $167 million to $432 million in 13 years; for that matter ask a JSS 3 student good in the arithmetic of compound interest, and they will give you the same answer – over 15% per annum. In 2007 that was Nigeria’s GDP and the nation was ranked 41 in the world.

Indonesia was in the twentieth position with the $432 million GDP. This year is almost over and not once in the five years since this fallacious pronouncement was made had the Nigerian economy grown up to eight per cent in a single year. Furthermore, each year we failed to grow at 15% adds extra burden of growth on other years.

From 2012, a mere nine years from 2020, our economy will have to grow at close to 20% per annum to recover lost ground. Even a market trader knows that it is impossible to grow at 20% for nine years in a row – we simply lack the skilled manpower, the financial capacities and the infrastructure to grow at 12%, not to talk of 20%.

Yet Usman and his “Voodooists” still cling to the absurdity and so does President Jonathan who has become a hostage to fiction peddlers. They all have one consolation – they won’t be there in 2020 to face the music with or without tenure elongation plan. Clever chaps!!

Unfortunately, Voodoo financial experts are not limited to the public sector. Some are hibernating in the private sector, hoping to be tapped for high public office; meanwhile, they draw attention to themselves by making statements guaranteed to come to the notice of the Voodoo economists at the top.

If a man is known by the company it keeps, a company, especially a bank, might also be known by the people it engages and keeps. One Razia Khan, self-advertised as a “financial analyst” with Standard Chartered, on October 19, 2011, was reported, in THE NATION, to have declared that Nigeria’s GDP will exceed that of South Africa by 2015 – a mere four years away.

Razia Khan, in order to arrive at this conclusion, had started with falsehood and ended with fatuity. His bosses will be well-advised to read his reports ten times before passing them on because one of the cardinal rules of honest financial statements is that they must be based of FACTS. Khan did not even try as the following will demonstrate.

According to this banker-fairy tales peddler, the Nigerian economy grew at over 10.3 per cent in the years 2003, 2004, 2007 and 2009. That must be news to the current Minister of Finance, who was Minister in 2003 and 2004; it must also be news to anybody who recollects what President Obasanjo and the CBN announced as our GDP growth for 2003 and 2004. Not once during OBJ’s eight years did our economy grow at even 7 per cent. Since 2007 was shared between two administrations, we would not comment on that beyond the fact that never, since the Gowon administration had Nigeria’s economy achieved double digit growth.

However, nothing demonstrates the lie being peddled as “expert” pronouncement by Khan better than what happened to the 2009 budget which was claimed to have grown by over 10.00 per cent. On December 7, 2009, Dr Mansur Mukhtar, then Minister of Finance, at a press conference had confessed that the nation suffered a shortfall of 22.5% in revenue for the year, about N660 billion.

The budget itself had projected GDP growth of 6.8% if implemented; and it was not. Then on July 21, 2010, while requesting for the passage of a Supplementary Appropriation Bill, the late President, Yar’Adua disclosed that the 2009 budget had not been implemented and GDP growth might be around 6.8 per cent.

Only an over-fertile imagination can come up with a growth of 10.5 per cent after a budgetary fiasco such as the one Nigeria experienced in 2009. At least, we now know why banks fail; they start by employing people who don’t understand simple arithmetic; not to talk of complex economics!!

By the way, South Africa, which this jester announced we will overtake in four years generates 45,000 MW of power. Its largest power plant alone generates more power than all of Nigeria’s power plants combined. Yet, newspapers fell over themselves to publish this nonsense.

Very soon we should be expecting Razia Khan to tell us we will achieve top 20 by 2017!1 Fiction writers don’t know when to stop. But, don’t worry, Khan might soon be given a top appointment at Aso Rock. Out there, the farther away you are from reality, the better your chances for employment.

BEFORE WE OCCUPY : CONSTRUCTIVE ADVICE TO PRESIDENT -2

“Their (governments) seems to be socialism for tycoons and capitalism for the rest of us”.

Nicholas D Kristof, American Financial Analyst/Economist.

When President Jonathan and his echo chambers talk about subsidy removal, they always limit themselves to fuel subsidy. Whereas, the most costly form of subsidy, to the nation occurs when cement importation is banned allowing local manufacturers who cannot compete to charge consumers 40% more per bag. The cost of this sort of subsidy is more than the subsidy on fuel. Let the government open up the cement sector and we will not occupy…

NATIONAL HONOURS. The largest receiver of Duty Waivers, over N100 billion, is also about to receive one of the highest honours in the land. If that is not subsidy tell me what is?

Forget Wikileaks. Read DeleLeaks. Read the book N5000 per copy.