Contrary to insinuations in some quarters, Wale Odunlami, Executive Chairman of Ikeja Local Government Area, Lagos State, is optimistic that the country will not go into recession in 2016.
“It is not true that the economy of Nigeria will go into recession next year. I don’t know what indices people who said that are using,” the council boss said.
Apparently buoyed by patriotic fervour, the Cambridge College director said he believes the economy has virtually bottomed out and should go on a rebound next year provided the economic managers don’t ruin it with bad policies, for instance.
Odunlami who fell short of accusing some of the multilateral agencies like International Monetary Fund (IMF), said: Nigeria has no business devaluing the Naira. You can’t continue to follow the same International Monetary Fund (IMF) pill, year in year out. In fact, it is the same pill that the IMF applies for every ailment; that is for every developing country, in the third world. They deliberately encourage you to continue to bring misery to your people. Our Naira is not convertible. It is not even partially convertible, not to talk of full convertibility. So, of what use is the devaluation when our main foreign exchange earnings is from crude oil, which is denominated in dollars. Which other major goods and services are we exporting?”
Odunlami said that devaluation continues to bring misery to people, since there are majorly import dependent.
“IMF will tell you devaluation will boost your FDI. I believe it’s a lie. How much of the FDIs have contributed to boost our economy since the CBN has been devaluing our currency, following a slide in government revenue. What is important is for the government to be concerned with how we manage our official foreign currency windows to stimulate the real sectors of the economy.”
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