This week, we publish the above titled piece by a guest columnist. The content, as avid readers will observe, is in consonance with what we have preached in this column for several years.

The phrase, ‘Sovereign Wealth Fund’, SWF, may sound like ‘big grammar’ to the average layman, who, with little education, represents the critical mass of our population.

The issue of fuel subsidy has generated so much indignation all over the country. The reason for the heat is obvious; Nigerians readily remember the immediate hikes in the price of virtually every product or service as petrol prices climbed from less than 20 kobo/litre in the early 1980s to the current regulated price of N65/litre.

In spite of former President Obasanjo’s intimidating presence, his attempts to deregulate the pricing of petroleum products (particularly P.M.S./petrol) hit a brick wall. Consequently, the value of subsidies has steadily increased from less than N100bn a year to over N1,000bn, and may exceed 20% of the proposed 2012 budget according to media reports.

The Central Bank of Nigeria has been unusually silent on the widening gap between the official exchange and the Bureau de Change (BDC) rates of the naira to the dollar.

Under normal circumstances where political and public offices are geared towards the service of the people, there is little or no personal gain in capturing power or its retention. Very few Nigerians now believe the flowery promises that politicians make on their campaign trails, but we recognize the rapid transformation to affluence of these self-proclaimed servants of the people!

The Dream Economy envisioned in government’s “‘Vision 20:2020’ seeks to position Nigeria as one of the top 20 economies in the world by the year 2020. In economic terms, this translates to having a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of at least US$900 billion by that date compared to about US$212 billion as at 2008″ – (Source: Nigeria Vision 2020 Economic Transformation Blueprint – pg. 26, work-in-progress as at 5/10/2009).

Media correspondents and the reading public often pose questions on the economy to this column. My responses to two of such inquiries will form the content of today’s piece.

There is an increasing universal recognition that the prime essence of government is the actualization of a thriving and beneficent economy; last week, President Goodluck Jonathan formally inaugurated the engine room that would serve as the arrowhead for the determination of his place in history as Nigeria’s number one citizen.

In her maiden address to journalists on Wednesday, 24/08/2011, the Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister for Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, alerted Nigerians that Nigeria’s domestic debt was about N5.2 trillion ($33bn), while external component is about $5.3bn. In other words, at today’s exchange rate of N152=$1, Nigeria’s total debt is over $39bn; that is about $4bn above ‘crisis’ level of $35bn in 2006, when we were stampeded to part with almost $18bn from a healthy reserve base of over $50bn. As at August 2011, our current debt burden exceeds our ‘paltry’ reserve base of about $33bn, but surprisingly, our ex-IMF President assures us that “Nigeria is in good shape, as the debt profile is only 20% of Gross Domestic Product”.