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A former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Professor Charles Soludo, has said the Economic Recovery Growth Plan (ERGP) recently launched by the federal government is not consistent with the All Progressive Congress (APC) manifesto.
He said this on Friday at the Vanguard Economic Discourse organised to proffer solutions to the nation’s economic problem held in Lagos.
Soludo said the APC manifesto promised a conscious plan for post-oil economy in Nigeria but to achieve this, the party should restructure the country, adding that there is no projection for exchange rate overhaul in the APC plan.
He said: “The rapid accumulation of foreign reserve depletion was not an accident. Nominal exchange rate would have been at 70 to 80 naira to the dollar if we had not maintained an under-valued naira. I can bet that not much would happen at the end of the plan in terms of restructuring of the economy.”
Soludo argued that there was no doubt that the present government inherited a depleted economy but it was also depleting the foreign reserves it met. “If it had even grown it by 50 percent, it would have been a different story by now,” he said.
A panelist, Dr. Obadiah Mailafia, who spoke on the blind spots of national development, agreed with the keynote speaker on some facts but added that he did not think that the economic blueprint of the government is not economic diversification but a fire brigade strategy to get the economy out of recession.
Mailafia, a former deputy governor of the CBN, said: “When it comes to Africa, we never mention industrialisation and technology. But I dare say that we must industrialise or perish.”
Muda Yusuf, the Director General of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce, said the private sector could do more to rescue the nation’s ailing economy.