A SUMMARY of Professor Sam Aluko’s interview, in February 2004, with TAYO ODUNLAMI of The News magazine was published, in this column last week. In the first part of that interview, the distinguished Professor of Economics, responded to questions on the potential impact of Naira devaluation, fuel pricing, privatization and foreign investment.

THE late Prof. Samuel Aluko was probably Nigeria’s best known Economist, until he passed on in 2012. In addition to his prowess as a notable scholar and sage, he later served as Chairman of the National Economic Intelligence Committee, in the Abacha Administration, and arguably provided the robust intellectual anchor to the military Dictator’s successful Economic Programmes, in which, despite Nigeria’s international pariah status, the naira notably remained stable at around N80=$1, even when the foreign reserves base was a paltry $4bn.

PRESIDENT Muhammed Buhari, finally laid the 2019 budget before the National Assembly, on Wednesday 19th December 2018; that is, barely 2 days before Parliament vacated for the Year End holidays. Incidentally, there was no apparent regret, nor indeed explanation why this mandatory process took so long; arguably, however, tardy implementation and gross distortion of the budget plan are the usual products of such casual approach to this critical national assignment.

“Those Micro-finance banks that we have today, are not ‘giving’ loans at single-digit interest rates”; for example, “You borrow N50,000 for 90 days and they expect you to pay another N50,000 interest to them in another 90 days. That is outrageous and that is too exorbitant…” besides, “if you don’t pay the N50,000 interest, they seize your bicycle, or your car or your machine.” (CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele-see story titled ‘Microfinance Banks Charging Outrageous Interest Rates on Loans”, Punch edition of December 10, 2018).

PETROLEUM product Marketers and Depot Owners Associations, gave the government, a seven day ultimatum last week, to redeem their long overdue balance for over N800bn for fuel, already sold at Government regulated price of N145/litre. 

NiIGERIA’s fiscal year has remained between January-December, since Independence in 1960, and, indeed, senior citizens may recall the ritual of budget speeches, by the Prime Minister or later President, on New Year’s Eve or shortly before December 31, while the nitty-gritty or specific details of each year’s budget would be revealed, usually, soon after, by the respective Finance Minister, who would capture changes in tariffs, taxes and other government economic policies that would be adopted for each year.

THE Central Bank of Nigeria has injected over $10.97bn, into the Forex Market between January and October this year, to defend the Nation’s currency, the Naira, against other major currencies, including the dollar.” (See Punch Newspaper report of November 18th 2018 titled “CBN Defended Naira with $11bn in 10 months”).

The Special Presidential Investigation Panel (SPIP) for “the Recovery of Public Property,” was inaugurated in August 2017, when Yemi Osinbajo was Acting President while Muhammad Buhari was away for medical attention in the UK.

THE IMF Country Chief, Amine Mati, who spoke at the presentation of the Regional Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa, in Abuja, last Thursday (November 8, 2018), was clearly concerned that, despite Nigeria’s very modest projected growth rate of about 1.9 per cent for 2018, and debt to GDP ratio between 20-25 per cent, unfortunately, however, Nigeria already also allocates more than 50 per cent of its revenue to debt service annually.

IN December 2017, President Buhari established a Tripartite Committee – comprising Labour Leaders, Federal and State Government representatives, to consider and recommend an appropriate increase on the present N18,000/month, National Minimum Wage, which became effective from 2011.

THE Brookings Institution, a Washington based Economic think-tank, published a report earlier this year, titled “The start of a new poverty narrative.” The report was primarily based on the work of three experts associated with the ‘World Poverty Clock, an Economic Study Group launched, in 2017, to track trends in poverty reduction.

THE Minister for Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma, revealed to the Media, in Abuja, on October 18th 2018, that in contrast to the 2018 total budget of N9.2tn, N8.651tn will be budgeted for 2019; i.e. next year’s budget will be about N470bn less than in 2018.

Since we split early in the year, my ex and I shared custody of our four-year-old daughter. This has worked out well, but she has started refering to her dad’s new girlfriend as ‘mummy’. I don’t have anything against the woman, but my daughter has only known her for a couple of months. The worst part is that I’ve never seen them correcting her. I want to stop taking her there for a while. I know it’s wrong, but I’m her only mummy.

THE business license of erstwhile Skye Bank Plc was summarily revoked last month (September 2018) by Godwin Emefiele, the CBN Governor. The revocation came about two years after the financial regulator sacked the management in July 2016; the action followed the bank’s inability to meet the mandatory minimum key liquidity and capital adequacy ratios, which failure resulted in “the bank’s permanent presence at the CBN lending window.”

PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari, inaugurated a 30 member tripartite Committee on Monday November 27, 2017, to negotiate a new National minimum wage. The Committee comprises six serving State Governors and other members from both the public and private sectors, as well as leaders of organized labour.