Brace for harder times, economic experts tell Nigerians

Economic experts have raised the alarm over the nation’s high debt profile, saying the situation portends danger for the economy and that Nigerians should prepare for harder times.
They said the country ’s total domestic and foreign debt stocks of about $15.1 billion and N14.1 trillion, respectively, which were recently revealed by the National Bureau of Statistics, were unsustainable.
The experts, who spoke in Osogbo, noted that the debts would be difficult to service as a result of the revenue challenges facing the country and the reliance of the Federal Government on borrowing to pay workers’ salaries.
Economic Historian and Budget Analyst in the Faculty of Arts, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Dr. Tunji Ogunyemi, and an economic expert, Mr. Segun Adebiyi, advised that, rather than continue to rely on borrowing to finance its payment of salaries and other projects, the Federal Government should adopt other sources of funding the infrastructural needs of the country and stop depending on oil proceeds.
The experts attributed the indebtedness of the country to lack of requisite economic management skills and foresight by President Muhammadu Buhari and the 36 state governors, adding that Nigerian leaders had consigned the country’s future to perpetual indebtedness.
According to Ogunyemi, the Federal and state governments should mobilise graduates, especially from the polytechnics to farms and train them to become agricultural experts, who would rejuvenate the nation’s agricultural economy.
Adebiyi, on his part, called for diversification of the economy and asked state governors to be less dependent on Federal allocations by improving on their internally generated revenues.
Ogunyemi said, “Mobilise graduates to farm, build hostels in these farms and produce agricultural experts. Embark on commercial agriculture system. Polytechnics are established to fill the middle level manpower, not to compete with universities. They (polytechnic graduates) should take us to technological growth in agriculture.
“Nigeria experiences over-bloated recurrent expenditures and this means that the amount of money being paid workers who do the same thing or even nothing, is not necessary. Nigeria is clearly over-governed. Too many workers doing nothing or same things.”
He added, “In economic realities, borrowing is necessarily bad economics. It’s good in Economics to borrow so as to invest. When it’s to invest, it’s perfectly in order. You are not expected to borrow beyond 40 per cent of the GDP. The huge indebtedness of Nigeria is calculated in naira.
“Nigeria is greatly indebted. I don’t want to sound an alarmist note, but we are grossly over borrowed. A country’s total revenue is just about 15billion American dollars. It’s utterly dangerous.”
Speaking in the same vein, Adebiyi said, “The Federal Government of Nigeria has been borrowing to pay salaries. It defeats the real essence of borrowing. You don’t borrow to pay
salaries.
“It must be a short run alternative. It’s sentencing the future of the country to perpetual indebtedness. Nigeria’s death is not sustainable. It’s sobering. The hard times are here. To put it euphemistically. We are moving in the perimeter of a return to debt.”