Whenever I see the face of Mr Wale Edun, Nigeria’s super minister incharge of Finance and the economy, I feel like giving him a cup of cold water to drink so that he can calm down. Nobody should be told that the honourable minister does not get his two eyes closed every night. The enormity of the burden before him is as huge as the papers left for the Presidential election tribunal to digest, so huge and so weird.
In his press conference over the week, the minister reeled out President Tinubu’s 8 points agenda on which the magic to upturned the crucibles of the failing economy resides . At a point he shook his head as the points looked irreconcilable based on the linkages that made each of them as tough as the next.
In all these, one thing remains largely understandable; the underlining problems posed by forex. Edun and Tinubu are aware that one name remains the problem of the Nigerian economic woes ; forex. Rather than chasing the shadows of the eight points, the helmsman must find a way of taming the forex which is the huge dragon in the economy.
There is no point wasting time with postulations over a new market economy when forex which is the only thing that holds all the components of the economy has gone to blazes . The current rate of the economy calls for state of emergency as not many Nigerians can afford any imported item if sold at the ruling rate of parallel market conversion which remains the biggest source of forex in the economy. What happens here is that as long as the exchange continues to be unfavourable to the Naira, more people will be left out of the market or pushed into the blatant pit of the looming enlargement of the poverty circle.
Nobody knows if Edun is still the enfant terrible as much as financial management is concerned, but the fact remains that he must find a rhythm if his role must find some reflex with what Ngozi Okonjo-iweala did the time it also mattered most. This kind of national emergency invokes the anticipated quality in Wale Edun because these times are not for hidden persuaders and rabble rousing economists. He most invoke the spirits of Menad Kanes to rise to the occasion and envelope it.
There is no hiding the fact that the production and consumption ideology would be the quick fix and short term approach to tame the ravaging exchange. At any time, whatever gains that are made is consumed by the waiting miasma that rests under the belly of the forex market. With a very low crude production volume, lhuge debt repayment and large chase for the scarce food items, the forex takes the crush and this reflects tremendously on the rich and poor.
Nothing will happen in the positive as forex remains largely troubled. Something must be done quickly to create some strings of hope to the Nigerian economy. As this gets poorer on daily basis, President Tinubu’s constituency may continue to whither, no matter the huge grandstanding that may have been deployed.
I really do not know what Edun will be telling the Bretton Woods institutions in October when he makes his first ever appearance as a minister at the World Bank/imf Annual meetings in Marrakesh, Morocco. Maybe excuses, even as the forex rate may have struck N1000/dollar.
