Let me commend the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for re-introducing the publication of key economic reports. When the apex bank abandoned this tradition in 2016, I was against it. You do not balance your bank account by asking for a thinner chequebook.
So, there was just no reason why the CBN stopped those publications. Why? If you do not have the data, everything becomes a guesswork. But with data, you will even know what is working and not working. I commend the central bank for restoring this tradition.
As a junior banker in Lagos, I relied on CBN working papers during my doctoral program in banking and finance. We were at the nascent phase of the Internet, but CBN was kind enough to push reports on its website.
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Now to the professors, analysts, citizens, etc, this is the moment we have been asking for: with the veil lifted, we can get insights on how the apex bank is thinking over things, and possibly, we can constructively offer suggestions. Study those reports, and test CBN policies on welfare gains and losses, assessing how projections turn out at the end of the policy implementations.
CBN: there are many economics professors in our universities: task them to assist. In other words, do not make it wholly internal where only CBN workers will churn out the publications. We want a balanced viewpoint, devoid of any political agenda, and supported by data.
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Tinubu appointed one Obaze as Special Counsel to investigate the activities of the CBN, what happened to the investigation and why is it inconclusive? There’s really no consequence for bad behaviour here. All you see are people who choose what favours them to amplify and then suppress the very things that matter to everyone.
The CBN will resume publications, but just like the NBS has been telling you that inflation is 33% or below, even when prices of things you buy yourself have doubled or tripled. You will soon learn new meanings for ratios, percentages, averages, and even basic arithmetic, because the real one you were taught may not hold with the data available for analysis.
How do you successfully deconstruct a lie in this kind of environment, especially with faulty data? Keep guessing…