By Prince Okafor

The Federal Government is yet to show sincerity in its diversification plan of the economy, the Managing Director, Financial Derivatives Limited, Mr. Bismarck Rewane, said. Rewane, who stated this at a public symposium on performance of President Buhari’s administration, said that Nigerians should not be deceived by what we call asymmetric data, which tells you that the economic activity has been diversified. That is the kind of propagandist literature for the past five months.

“The revenue activity of this nation, are still concentrated on oil and gas, oil is about 89 per cent, LNG, 9 per cent and the rest.” According to Rewane, “To test this hypothesis, ask yourself, if it is true, that oil makes only 15 per cent of this economy, close the oil wells today.

It will mean that if you close them today, 85 per cent of the economy should continue. But (in reality) if you close them down, that same day, there will be no money going into the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, no dollar to fund trade, no dollar to convert into naira to fund the Government,” He stated.

Rewane also noted that inflation rate in the country is at 15.6 per cent, while unemployment has risen by 31 per cent. The misery index is an economic indicator that helps determine how the average citizen is doing economically and it is calculated by adding the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate to the annual inflation rate. Adding that, “Nigeria’s misery index has risen from 44.1 to 45.6 per cent, about 45.6 per cent of the country’s populace could be considered miserable while the other are considered prosperous.

“When the misery index deteriorates consistently for two quarters, the favourable rating of that administration suffers severely. The state of the Nigeria economy, with a GDP of $500 billion and dependent on crude oil crude, as oil makes up only about 12 to 15 percent of our crude, means that in term of revenue and the fuel that runs the economy, oil and gas mean everything,” he said.