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Nigerians - there are alternatives to two old bags in 2019, let us consider them - Part One

Has any economist in Nigeria quantified the immense damage Buhari's pedestrian attitude and economic policy did to the Nigerian economy?

The free fall of the naira caused catastrophic loss to the financial sector; the purchasing power of an average Nigerian diminished over a period of few months due to Buhari ineptitude in office. A Professor earning N450k/month could exchange his salary for about $2,700 before Buhari, today, he can only get $1,200 from the same amount. That is a 55% loss in purchasing power - imagine such professor planning an overseas' trip, how useless his salary would be today. The same thing goes for imported goods due to devalued naira - that is why rice is so expensive, and why a lot of imported goods are expensive.

We did not know what we were asking for when we said people should consider Buhari in 2015 - he was a better alternative to a president that just rationalized corruption as a way of life he is comfortable with. Buhari ran the Federal ministries by himself for months, this is a man that can not run his own house. The uncertainty that surrounded his non-appointment of ministers, the blockage of money transfer to domiciliary accounts from abroad reduced inflow of the other source of foreign exchange that would have cushioned the effect of unprecedented demand of dollars by investors leaving in droves, the artificial pegging of naira exchange rate to the dollar and the limitation to how much dollar could be sold a day fueled speculations and unpatriotic practices by CBN staff that had access to the foreign exchange, and his unguarded utterances created fear and panic for foreign investors and many of them hurriedly closed business. It was reported that approximately $80billion left the Nigerian economy during this period. Buhari's desire to lead at all cost without being prepared has caused a catastrophic effect on the gains of the last 16 years before him, in spite of enormous corruption during that era.

Buhari has not re-shoveled his cabinet once since they were appointed except those that left. This is an indication that he does not know what is going on, he has no way to measure their success and failures, as it is obvious, a lot of these ministers are not performing well. We cannot trust Buhari for another 4 years because he does not know what he is doing. His vice that knows, he does not allow Osinbajo a free hand to lead as he did with Idiagbon because of the stigma of Idiagbon era that has not gone away.

Nigerians need to think deep before they go to the polls in February next year. Electing Buhari will spell woes for us - there is no sign his madness will escalate to a full blown craziness that Nigeria needs to come out of the current quagmire. We should also be careful with Atiku, a man who has spent billions of naira to secure the ticket of PDP - if he became the president, he will recoup his money with compound interest and more. There are alternatives, let us consider them.

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