By Temitope Ajayi
I continue to find it quite amusing how Professor Kingsley Moghalu and others like him have managed to convince themselves that their period in government was the ‘golden era of competence’ in the management of the economy of Nigeria.
Granted that the OBJ era 1999-2007 birthed some reforms that opened up the economy but it was a period that Nigeria didn’t see any progress in infrastructural development that has direct bearing on the quality of life. That period till 2015 was a period of trillions of unpaid salary and pension arrears. A period when contractors were owed hundreds of billions with thousands of abandoned and uncompleted projects.
We should never forget Professor Moghalu was a Deputy Governor at the Central Bank during this period when his boss, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi said $20billion dollars in oil revenue could not be accounted for. He was Deputy Governor at CBN when hundreds of millions of dollars were looted under various guises yet Moghalu wants us to believe that that period was the gold standard in economic management in Nigeria.
In his series of tweets today, Moghalu stated that Nigeria is being run by ‘incompetent leadership’ since 2015 whereas the so-called ‘incompetent leadership’ of APC paid off salary and pension debts left behind by Moghalu’s band of ‘competent’ leaders. Nigeria has seen massive investments in critical economic infrastructure – roads, ports, power, airports, irrigation dams, rail, military/security hardwaresย –ย never seen in last 40years made possible by supposed ‘incompetent’ leaders. Under the ‘incompetent leadership’ of APC, the government embarked on reconstruction of 13,000 kilometres of roads across the country out of 33,000 kilometres of Federal roads in 8 years of President Buhari.
It should be said too that every indices of measuring economic growth significantly declined from 2010- May 2015, a period when Moghalu was Deputy Governor at CBN. By the time the Jonathan administration handed over to Buhari on May 29, 2015 the GDP had declined from 7% growth rate to 2% and Nigeria was already primed for recession which eventually happened with collapse of crude oil price.
Nigeria’s foreign reserve dropped from the height of $60billion to $29billion when Moghalu was part of the ‘competent leaders’ in government and Excess Crude Account dropped from $20billion to $2billion at the time crude oil sold for $100 per barrel for straight 4years from 2011-2014.
The period between 2010-2014 was when Nigeria made most money from crude oil in history yet nothing to show for it. Dear Professor Moghalu, not all of us are suffering from dementia Sir.
Truth is people like Professor Moghalu should stop fouling the atmosphere with their holier- than-thou remonstrations.
-Ajayi is Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media & Publicity
