 Thank you for joining us. It's still our June 12th special as we celebrate with Nigerians within and without Democracy Day. I'm Marianna Kuhn and still with me is Well, we just have news coming in from Lagos apparently Protesters have been arrested at the Ghani highway meat park here in Lagos We will bring you details on that as we continue But right now was moving straight to the economy The performance of the Nigerian economy was mixed under former military head of state, Saniya Bacha Foreign reserves increased from less than five hundred million dollars to nearly ten billion dollars The national debt and inflation also reduced the Nigeria and but Nigeria remained a mono product economy Was oil as the major contributor to our economic growth Procedures and processes were also abused and there was unchecked looting quite interesting and the short tenure of Abdu Salaam-e-Bubaka saw the depletion of Nigerians foreign reserves and allegations of corruption the economy grew under President Ulusha Gumo Basaja with the liberalization of the telecommunications industry the Banking consolidation and the privatization program the growth was sustained under President Goodluck Jonathan, but external debt ballooned and the foreign reserves taxed Now under a president Muhammad upon hiring Nigeria has witnessed two recessions And we are currently on the way to a slow recovery well and We have joining us of a diamond Lafayette who is joining us from plateau state Vasu to take a look at how Nigeria has fared Economically he's a former deputy governor of the central bank of Nigeria a former official of the African Development Bank group And a former presidential candidate. Good afternoon. Dr. Melafia Well, thank you very much for joining us. Mr. Lafayette All right, happy democracy day Let's start with looking at, you know, the economy a lot of people have blamed the recessions that we've gone in and out of or the state of the economy on the successive governments To leadership some have also blamed it to bad Judgments that we've made in terms of who sits at the top of the apex bank But what do you think is the cause of the recession that we've faced is we've had lower prices Could he also be poor management of the economy because we also have the economic council Where the vice president under any administration heads? Well, you know As you you jolly well know This things never happened on a straight and simple Unilinear path from One cause to another there are often a multiplicity of causes domestic global Geopolitical Leadership all of them combine together to create a scenario in which we find ourselves at present And you will agree with me that it is far from being a happy scenario We in the space of five years. We've had two negative growths. I can tell you From 1968 to 1998 up to 2015 we had had only one negative growth and that was in 1968 at the peak of the civil war That growth came to minus 2.7 or thereabouts But in 2016 we had a minus growth of minus 1.6 and in 2020 last year we had a growth of almost 2 percent 1.8 percent minus 1.8 percent so and to have these Within, you know for five years Is is a very terrible time situation and for the five last five years We have never had growth that even reaches 3 percent Come back compared to a bus and just almost seven percent Grow through at his period in office. I mean that that was extraordinary Today we you know the figures look very pessimistic inflation about 19 percent Unemployment about 33 percent, you know, Nigeria in 2017 overtook India as the world capital of poverty So we as having very serious problems There has been a massive fall In foreign reserves from a peak of about 60 billion dollars To today around 30 33 34 billion dollars and not only that There's been a massive fall in the value of the Naira From about hundred and sixty Naira to the dollar In 2014 to now almost five hundred four eighty Naira to the dollar is an extraordinary fall Almost 200 percent. I mean it's it's terrible. I mean you can't imagine it and of course being an oil dependent rent rent here economy We we depend a lot on impulse of course a fall in the exchange rate the devaluation of a currency reflects in higher import prices and higher inflation and inflation on its part undermines long-term growth undermines investments undermines Employment and so you have a vicious circle of poverty. What are the causes of that? Of course? It's easy to blame The global collapse in oil prices that is a factor, but that is not the only factor because as a matter of fact Oil Has increasingly played a lesser part than it did before in our macroeconomy There's a time that oil accounted for 20 percent of the economy in fact 50 percent of the economy then 20 percent today oil accounts for less than 50 percent of our GDP and It accounts for only 50 percent of our You know government revenue even though it still accounts for over 90 percent of our foreign Receipts foreign earnings. So other sectors have come in getting stronger agriculture manufacturing You know building and construction these have become increasingly very important sectors But even then oil still continues to play a major part the crisis of insecurity in our country particularly in the rural areas is depressing agricultural productivity and increasing hunger and food inflation Food inflation for typical products like Gary beans and so it's almost hundred percent increase So the poor are getting more desperate the youth More unemployed they get a very angry. I mean, we're talking about over 20 million Nigerians who are unemployed and If you add to that number the underemployed and by the underemployed I mean Let's say graduate who did mechanical engineering is it just to riding a rocker Yeah, he's doing a job, but it's hardly the kind of job that he was trained for So our situation is is getting worse from back to worse and the peak of it is leadership There's a failure of leadership Yeah We're going to talk about the failure of leadership But I want to delve more into our dependence on oil because you've just mentioned that it's played a lesser role that he used to in our in our economy, but Let's talk about agriculture something that we bandy every time we talk about maybe the oil benchmark Shifting from where it used to be or the when the oil price falls We remember that oh we have agriculture and then we begin to say it sounds more like we're going to do something about it But yes, there has been a growth to our agriculture But why have we not necessarily paid as much attention to our agricultural sector as we have paid or in fact solely Depended on oil. I mean there are people what I might I might not have grown up in that year I might not have been born, but I remember The fact that we used to as a country depends solely on agriculture and we did fairly well Why have we totally jettisoned it being that even now? Agriculture has gone beyond a hole and a machete We're now looking at mechanized farming and of course other things in technology wise Why has Nigeria not paid as much attention to it? In fact, we even have somebody sitting at the Africa Development Bank who used to be Someone in charge of agriculture and yet we seem not to be playing on the same levels like Rwanda or Kenya Well many factors I come for this, you know leaders when they come into power Come with their priorities and they come with an agenda I don't think this particular administration the APC led administration of President Muhammadu Buhari Has given enough attention to agriculture the way previous leaders did Certainly, Olusia Gunobasanjo a big-time farmer himself paid very big attention to agriculture and We never celebrate enough. I think in my humble opinion The late president Umar of Musa Yer-Adwa People don't know that after National Service he started his career as a farmer in Funtua He was the general manager of his elder brother's farm the late Musa Yer-Adwa He walked on his farm for many years So he had this passion for agriculture and I remember at some stages an advisor to the program minister of agriculture and I recall that more than once Musa Yer-Adwa had committed huge amounts of money to build silos So that they will be guaranteed prices for farmers for certain crops You know that will be bought and kept in those silos so that during times of shortage They would be released in order to cushion of extreme volatility in agricultural prices and Guaranteed income for rural farmers so that they have incentives to continue to produce and to grow more food Unfortunately, I don't know what became of that project after President passed away and here we are with the president who is more interested in cattle Well, he's a cattle farmer himself. He's full learning or so they tell us and so they have different priorities And agriculture is suffering the insecurity in the rural areas He's undermining agriculture. In fact, some people fear that this year we might face the ugly situation of farming and hunger Especially that the rains have been a bit temperamental and in many especially the savannah of the middle world a Lot of farmers are very scared of going to their farms They are being killed and maimed. They are to and maimed their wives raped There's a kind of unprecedented violence in the rural countryside. I grew up as a Missionary boy myself in a village where my father was evangelist so I understand the dilemmas facing farmers in the rural sector and We neglect that sector at our peril because a great nation requires food security That's Dr. Melafia. I will come back to you, but quickly we want to tell our Viewer to join us. You can watch this democracy day special live on our YouTube channel plots TV Africa lifestyle. You can also join the conversation That's you can join the conversation by sending a whatsapp and also make your phone calls the numbers are reaching on the screen You can get more insight on this conversation Please join us if you need to leave your house, and you don't want to miss anything you can continue that With us on our conversation. Thank you so much. So Dr. Melafia talking about Let me use the buzzword that we'll be using from different successive generation Diversification which is what she talked about but as we speak let's fast forward to our current reality We're talking about the ICT. We're talking about the pharmaceutical or call it helps that is trendy now Like they describe data as the new black oil and as we speak we're talking about Twitter being banned We're talking about listening to the president this morning. He said the two drivers of Insecurity Coating him now or poverty a huge unemployment So, how do we stay with the trend? How do we maximize this ICT that we seem not to be doing Nothing or little about it. Well ICT can also be a driver Poverty alleviation if only we could do it the right way Some of us condemned the burning of Suspension of Twitter. I think it is misguided. I think it is a wrong policy And above all it sends the wrong signals So the signals that Nigeria is a very insular Narrow-minded and inward-looking country that that is not open to the rest of the world and certain the wrong signals that we have a government that is determined to repress The liberties of its citizens particularly of young people who use Twitter a lot Who in fact even use it for business, you know Set up information systems for clients and they're paid for their services Where we are told that the laws the suspension will cost us something like over a trillion Naira a year. I Mean, this is 10% of last year's budget of 10 trillion. So I'm very worried about this We should we want to be a scientific country want to be a forward-looking country in the United States of America Donald J. Trump Said tweeted in a manner that Twitter did not like Twitter found it threatening and Twitter banned him He is the most powerful You know leader in the whole world Commander in chief of the most powerful country on earth Donald J. Trump Was not foolhardy enough as to ban Twitter and I don't see why Anyone in this country should ban Twitter Because he was not happy with real suspending at the expense of 200 million of his own citizens It is not only misguided. It is wrong and it is despotic in nature and carrot That's what may laugh yet. Just before we wrap this segment up. I'm very curious I want to ask because I know that you're a very big critic of Governments including this government, but I want to ask if you were seated on the same table I remember under the good luck And under the Basantra administration if I'm very correct, we had a coordinating Minister for the economy which helped you know to Probably set the economy on the right, you know direction even though at that point we had our own problems But right now we're not necessarily sure where our economy is headed but if you were opportunity to sit on a table with the Economic committee or the the minister of finance What ideas would you be giving? What should we be dropping off these strategies? If there's even a blueprint for our economy under this administration What would you be advising them to focus on they have two more years and and of course Nigerians are already tight They've all over tightened their belts because of how bad the situation of things are because people's take-home pay People's take-home pay no longer takes them home What would be the idea that you would give in the interim that could help Nigeria's tear our economy in the right direction? I do not know whether my response will be useful in this regard. I don't think it will be Because we are dealing with people that are totally incorrigible They are unteachable They are not interested in anybody who is not of their come I am not a Muslim and I'm not a fuller and so I don't think they want to even hear the views of people like us I don't want to waste my time. I don't want to waste your time And but let me make this very important point. You describe me as Somebody who is a critic of the government. I don't consider myself like that at all and I've never packaged myself like that you know there are Nigerian politicians that if they are not in power or they don't have a position It is their stock in trade to be attacking everything being done and to be criticizing and when they're given a position They shut up immediately Look, I am not that kind of person through my education My my faith My intellectual convictions. I see myself as a public intellectual And the public intellectual who is also a statesman a statesman is not somebody who For him politics is do or die Who is ready to suspend his policies these convictions for temporary gain? I am not that kind of person My conscience troubles me Dr. Milafia, I'm so sorry I When you rape women you kill children in the very eyes of a government that has refused to do anything about I'm so sorry our time is fine. I think you've succeeded in letting us know that You shouldn't describe you as a critic of government and I wish that would allow us to listen to you on the way forward We never can tell what your advice might be to maybe not this government Maybe succeeding of me just for the test of time, but I'm so sorry We have to wrap up this particular Fantastic ideas. I have great ideas and I have a master plan. I think we would do that on our conversation Man them this country my vision. Let me tell you my vision is to benchmark Nigeria against Germany Not even Britain Britain is too small I want to benchmark Nigeria with Germany. That is the standard I've said for myself. Thank you. Dr. Milafia. Thank you so much We have to go well as Thank you very much. Well as we continue our democracy day special plus TV Africa's Jacinta or Buickle went to talk to a set of people born after 1979 Millennials and Generation Z's. This is her report