The conversation on the latest Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) policy – Naira 4 dollar scheme, i.e. extra N5 is paid by the apex bank for every remitted $1 into Nigeria – has generated many opinions in our platforms. While I truly welcome the opinions, let us not be personally attacking elected or appointed officials. Make your point, challenge their policy choices, but do not insult them. If you check, we are saying the same thing and we know that the mess in Nigeria did not start today. Nigeria used to have tons of dollars that we were looking for countries to pay their bills!
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) needs US dollars desperately to help cushion the nation’s balance of payment, and fight deterioration of the Naira, and is going to Nigeria’s best export: the diaspora community. Yes, the apex bank has unveiled a really ingenious scheme called “Naira 4 Dollar Scheme”. Largely, if you wire US dollars to Nigeria via the approved IMTO (international money transfer operators) like Western Union, the payout bank will pay your recipient N5 per $I besides the recipient receiving the full amount you wired in US dollars. The CBN Governor mentioned in a Diaspora Series organized by Fidelity Bank Plc.
Godwin Emefiele cannot fix this overnight. Obasanjo cannot fix it overnight. Jonathan cannot fix it overnight. Buhari cannot fix it overnight. I cannot fix it overnight. You cannot fix it overnight. We know one thing: unless we produce things in Nigeria, all the financial engineering will fail. Factories and warehouses hold Nigeria’s future, not CBN HQs working financial model with Naira! Sure, we hope the policies provide the path to have those factories and warehouses; the Policies should be the focus, not the persons.
We must challenge these men and women but we must do so with civility. The number of registered voters for Lagos and Kano States were 6.5 million and 5.4 million respectively for the 2019 presidential election. Out of that, about 1.1 million voted in Lagos while Kano had 1.9 million. Simply, 5.4 million people in Lagos where many of us live registered but did not vote. This number does not include qualified people who did not even bother to register.
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Run the number and you will see the same pattern across the nation. Simply, nothing is unpredictable: that we stay home and allow party faithfuls to run the show, only to complain later, will not change the outcome. Yes, if there were Candidate M who could have received all the votes of those who registered but did not vote, from state to federal to presidency, that Candidate M would have WON all positions in Nigeria. So, the power is in our hands but we do not use it.
This is what happens: the extremely motivated party faithfuls go out and vote and elect their members. You who stay home or out of the system, come only to complain after the outcome. We need to be real in Nigeria! Insulting those elected officials or their appointees will not change anything because you gave up your rights to help Naira! Sure – challenge their policies but do not think you are not part of the problem.
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You are now sounding like a ruling party official who struggles to defend his party’s horrible policies!
To begin with, how do you separate policies from who made them, can a bad head produce great result? Policies don’t make themselves, people are responsible, so when the policies are terrible, those who formulated them should take the beating, else we are grooming bunch of irresponsible creatures. When you make bad calls, it becomes your responsibility to clean the mess; you cannot tell people to focus only on your bad calls while leaving you alone.
Again, saying that Nigeria has been damaged for so long, and therefore neither Buhari nor Emefiele or folks before them could fix it overnight. Six years is not overnight, so if you cannot put Nigeria on the road to recovery after six years, then your incompetence is palpable. Why is resignation so difficult here? Honourable people resign when they realise that they do not have what it takes to move their society forward.
The job of a medicine is not cure any particular ailment, but rather to put the patient on the road to recovery, as far as possible. No single person can transform Nigeria in his/her lifetime, but someone should be able to put Nigeria on the road to greatness!
“To begin with, how do you separate policies from who made them, can a bad head produce great result? P” Francis, actually, this post was addressed partly to you. I do find it not helpful when we write this person is “retarded”, “not intelligent,” “not smart”, etc. It makes debates harder because you are introducing fudge factors which make the whole ecosystem noisy. The key thing is to make the points on the policies and leave the person. A comment which abuses Buhari, OBJ, Emefiele, etc will make the debate shift from the policy to Buhari, etc as a person.
Emefiele has made many poor policies. Call him up but do not insult him as a person. The same goes for all of them. That way, we focus on their policies and get the best out of them since we rarely have time to vote to select them! shekinah!
Ndu, I think you are putting the cart before the horse. We seem not to be looking at the cause and highlighting the effects. Who in his/her sane mind would vote for a politician when the rule of law cannot be made to stand? Which politician or military official has upheld the law of the land unfairly since Idiagbon? Once the common man is unable to rely on the law, voting becomes a farce. That’s why voting makes sense. You know those Nigerians who are so poverty stricken that once they see a source of food for 1 day would vote for that source to rule them for 4 years. That’s why your statistics came up.