In case you didn’t know By Isiaq Ajibola

‘In Case You Didn’t Know’ is a song by Brett Young, released as the second single from his debut self-titled album.
The song made a huge impact on the Billboard charts in the US.
It is the title of this celebrated song I intend to use to convey my introspection of President Muhammed Buhari( PMB)’s most critiqued actions, especially as it affects the trend of the Nigeria economy.
Pundits have expressed different views on the performances of his regime since he assumed office in 2015.
While some believe that the president has performed well under the circumstances he met the country at the time, others believe that he has not measured up to expectations and should not be re-elected in the 2019 general election.
Some have tagged his three years in office as one that has brought economic hardship on Nigerians and vilified his administration for repeatedly blaming the past regime of President Goodluck Jonathan set apart by looting of public treasury and forgetting that Nigeria could have been worse off.
For those who believe that PMB should no longer blame his predecessors, I ask; how do you quarantine a three year period of PMB regime without it inheriting part of the malaise the predecessors had afflicted on the regime? In case you didn’t know, every newly elected President tends to pillory its predecessors to make excuses for their regime.
That was why President Donald Trump recently attacked the economic track record of his predecessors, blaming presidents dating back nearly 30 years, for accumulating trade deficits for the United States.Trump had said “From Bush 1 to present, our country has lost more than 55,000 factories, 6,000,000 manufacturing jobs and accumulated Trade Deficits of more than 12 trillion dollars,” he wrote on his Twitter handle.
“Last year, we had a trade deficit of almost 800 billion dollars .
Bad policies and leadership.
Must WIN again!” In case you didn’t Know, the economy of Nigeria was dipped into a recession with the withering foreign exchange earnings on the eve of President Goodluck Jonathan’s exit from power.
In case you didn’t know, Nigeria’s foreign reserve slumped to $29b from about $60b at the same time about 17 states were no longer able to pay salaries under the Jonathan regime in 2015.
In case you didn’t know, the declining foreign reserve in the face of low income from crude oil prices in the international market was more responsible for the devaluation of the Naira that saw the exchange rate rising to $1 to N450 In case you didn’t know, out of about seven(7) important reasons why governments hold foreign reserves, the most important is using it as an instrument of managing local currency values.
In case you didn’t know, Nigeria’s exchange rate was negatively affected by crude oil prices, that contributed more than 75% of our foreign exchange earnings, which crashed to an all time low of $45 per barrel in the international market in 2016.
In case you didn’t know, chances are, if we had continued with our national profligacy, our debts could have risen exceedingly out of our required minimum ratio to GDP used by the world bank and international financial institutions.
In case you didn’t know, Greece in 2015, around the same time PMB took over, was thrown into a financial crisis that resulted from a lack of adequate reserves to service the country’s debt obligation, throwing the country into a recession.
In case you didn’t know, it became so hard in Greece that banks pegged weekly maximum withdrawal to 420 euros only (about N229,000) for individuals.
In case you didn’t know, Greece is gasping for survival as her workers still go on intermittent strikes up till now.
In case you didn’t know, Nigeria would have been in a bigger economic mess if the looting had continued with an oil price that went down to as low as $34 while foreign reserves nose -dived .
In case you didn’t know, when oil prices averaged $50, our monthly average import bill reduced to about $12.4m.
School fees obligations for foreign students could not be easily met, businesses could not finance their forex demands, the growth in retail businesses shrunk and many businesses began to close.
In case you didn’t know, Nigeria is now footing about $588m monthly importation bill and stabilizing the exchange rate to a reasonable extent.
In case you didn’t know, it was a conspiracy theory that blamed the economic managers for causing the 2016 -17 recession when in actual fact, there was no money to finance recurrent expenditure for both federal and state governments and no escape route for the economy from being beaten.
In case you didn’t know, it was only in December, 2016, when Nigeria’s reserves rose to cover 12 months’ importation requirements that forex began to stabilize.
In case you didn’t know, foreign reserves are buffers for ameliorating debt crises and a powerful instrument in boosting portfolio investors’ confidence in an economy.
In case you didn’t know, due to management of our situation by CBN, there was an increase of about $1b in foreign earnings between December 17-18 alone due to gradual rise of prices of oil in the international market and raking in of portfolio investors’ money.
In case you didn’t know, through prudent spendings and unprecedented savings, foreign reserves have now climbed to $47.6 as at July, 2018.
In case you didn’t know,government contractors have gone back to sites and important infrastructure like roads, bridges, railways, airports etc are being built around the country.
In case you didn’t know, our security problems which dated back to many years as well as what is happening now could have been worse for the country if PBM had not taken decisive steps on security.
In case you didn’t know, I had the privilege of attending a breakfast meeting with President Umar Yar’Adua with my colleagues at Daily Trust in 2008.
The late president told us how frightening it was to him that dangerous weapons and arms were moving towards Nigeria from Libya.
He had expressed great worry that if the trend was not reversed, it could lead to a big catastrophe for the country.
In case you didn’t know, Nigeria’s population is growing at a rapid rate and has made the country a major attraction for international conflicts.
In case you didn’t know, Nigeria’s population, mainly unproductive, has broken the record of irrational growth Buhari pattern.
For example, the population of Nigeria and UK were 45m and 52m respectively in 1960, when we got our Independence from Britain.
In 2016 however, while that of UK had slightly increased to 65m, Nigeria’s population has surged to 180m people.
In case you didn’t know, many people have blamed PMB (and I agree with them), that the president could have assuaged the feelings of people by making necessary pronouncement regarding the recent Benue killings.
In case you didn’t know, it was Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue state that exacerbated the problem by giving false narration of the events of the unfortunate killings.
Using his office as executive governor, he made reckless pronouncements that fueled the anger of Christians against Muslims.
In case you didn’t know, the stability of the Nigeria economy depends largely on the stability of the government and the high capacity the political class deplores.
In case you didn’t know whether or not PMB is the right person to continue will largely depend on if, indeed, we have an alternative.