President of Nigerian Economic Society (NES) president, Professor Adeola Adenikinju, Wednesday tasked the federal government to stop consulting foreign experts, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank alone on policies without getting inputs from Nigerian experts and economic associations.
Professor Adenikinju stated this at the just concluded third annual hybrid NAMM international conference themed “Macro-economic Modeling and Data Science for Socio-Economic Development’’ held at the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria.
The NES president pointed out that the time has come for the federal government to consult Nigerian experts, not just relying on foreign institutions alone.
”Economic policies have become too sophisticated, that you cannot make them on the basis of intuitions or without proper evidence-based framework. So, you need to have a model that will help you to put all of that analysis in a framework.
”It is very important that the government also consult local experts as they consult foreign partners instead of just relying on the IMF and the World Bank to resolve some of these issues. When they go to the IMF, the World Bank, India or some of these other countries, their local experts will bring their models. So, models will work with models.
”The government should not just listen to foreign speakers, and foreign experts, but get our own local experts to also be there at the table.” Speaking, a former director-general of the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research [NISER], and now of African Centre for Shared Development Capacity Building (ACSDCB), Ibadan, Prof. Olu Ajakaiye, said the government needed to do more in terms of using models in decision-making and involvement of local macroeconomic modelers.
”The federal government is listening to advice from the the bank, and other development partners and organisations. But those suggestions are coming from their models, the understanding of the workings of the Nigerian economy may not be exactly what is in those models.
“It is important that before the government accepts the suggestions, it should send the suggestions back to their peers here for reviews and reconciliation. It is in that meeting with experts, and their colleagues from Nigeria that they will then be able to open up their models and reveal their assumptions,” he said.