Running the government, defending the mandate and mobilizing the people for
economic sacrifice is a tall order, economist, Bismarck Rewane, Chief Executive Officer of Financial Derivatives Company (FDC) Limited has warned.
Rewane in his FDC’s monthly report in a breakfast meeting at the Lagos Business School (LBS) , titled: sharing the spoils and not the work, said: “The human traffic to Abuja has been hectic, definitely not as tourists but in search of the gravy train. This seems to be the thinking after a contentious election and the longest political campaign in Nigeria’s recent history”.
He quoted William L. Marcy, “To the victor go the spoils” – the winner of a conflict gains additional benefits beyond the subject of the conflict,he said.
He warned that, ” making new appointments without policy change and institutional reform is an exercise in economic futility, because it doesn’t take long before the new guys get married to the natives”.
He sees the third quarter of this year as a make or break, particularly as external vulnerabilities will soon show up.
“Nigeria will have to meet its Eurobond maturity of $500 million in July 2023. It will need to pay its defaulted obligation under the Azura Power Project.
“The true position of the net external reserves will determine how fast the real effective exchange rate will emerge. Investors, creditors and the markets are awaiting concrete steps and policy moves in the next two weeks.
“Whilst the Barbarians at the gate struggle over the political spoils, the problems will only compound.”, he said.
