Agbakoba also criticized President Muhammadu Buhari for not having
clear-cut economic solutions to the present hardship in the country.
Ex-NBA President, Olisa Agbakoba(The Nation)
Prominent lawyer, Olisa Agbakoba has said that Nigeria is in a depression, not a recession as claimed by Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele.
Agbakoba also criticized President Muhammadu Buhari for not having clear-cut economic solutions to the present hardship in the country, ThisDay reports.
“We
are no more in recession, we are now in depression because five
consecutive quarterly growth which Q1 2016 shows a negative balance is a
depression,” he said at a press conference in Lagos on Wednesday, May 25, 2016.
“Technically
speaking, you calculate growth rate by GDP over population, goods and
service produced over population. Do you know the current growth rate
for the Q1? According to the National Bureau of Statistics, it is 0.34.
The last growth rate was two, so we lost two.
“Therefore,
we are now at the depression stage. Also, if you look at all the
critical indexes, you will find out that things are really bad, foreign
direct investment is zero, stock market is down, petroleum prices are
up, in fact no good news.
“And in
appraising the one year of President Buhari government, we must also
acknowledge the crises of the old order. So all I am saying is the
crises of the old order and the hope of change, and now what has
happened?
“The crises of the old order
meant that things were very difficult, there was high rate of
corruption, insecurity occasioned by Boko Haram among others, so how has
President Buhari handled all these?
“In
the beginning, I was cautiously positive, but now, I am cautiously
negative. I am waiting to see what will happen, but in fairness to
Buhari, he has been challenged by the envisaged crises of governance
that he found. These crises meant that he was bucked down.
“Also,
more credit should go to him in respect of the anti-corruption war but
the anti-graft programme is a rigmarole, and like I said, if you keep
looking in the rear mirror, you don’t move. The anti-corruption
programme is suffering from the equivalent of a driver who is looking in
the rear mirror on what has happened behind, he is not going to move
forward.
“We know that many people have
stolen money, but what we want to see is an aggressive action plan. The
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and other law
enforcement agencies clearly don’t have the resources, capacity and
skill, so the resources we could have gathered (at least 3 to 4 trillion
naira from the anti-graft war) are not coming in.
“We
hear a lot about corruption, although quite agreed that there have been
strong action from the government in respect to corruption, insecurity
has had flip flops-Fulani herdsmen, kidnappings, Niger Delta militancy,
and the suppressed Boko Haram-with all these, and we need a new
anti-corruption apparatus that can deliver results but let’s also agree
that something has happened in the anti-graft war.
“We
need to rebalance the federation. We need to include all Nigerians. So I
think that the president appraisal in handling political stability in
the country has be rather weak. Going forward, he needs to address how
to make Nigeria a place where everybody participate, so that little
issues don’t this national ramifications,” he added.
Emefiele had said, on May 24, that a recession is imminent in Nigeria due to a four-month delay in passing the nation’s budget.
Source: Pulse.ng
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