“IMF warning on global recession is wake-up call for Nigeria”

COMFORT EKELEME

The recent warning from International Monetary Fund (IMF) that the COVID 19 pandemic will spark the worst global economic fallout has continued to raise concerns among Nigerians considering the present economic situation of the country.

This is even as economic experts have described the warning as a wake-up call for the present administration and the need to face governance squarely so that Nigeria may not be the worst hit of the global economic fallout.

IMF had  last week warned that the coronavirus pandemic will spark the worst global economic fallout since the great depression of the 1920s and 1930s, adding that the world is facing an unprecedented crisis in the coming year, a period which would be unusually difficult.

IMF Managing Director, Kristalina Georgieva, told a news conference in Washington that even if the pandemic loosened its grip in the second half of the year and parts of the economy were allowed to re-start, only a partial recovery could be expected.

The IMF chief emphasized how difficult it was to make prognoses of this kind, adding that the situation could end up being even worse, depending on how long the pandemic lasts.

Although many Nigerians had at the spark of the the COVID 19 pandemic that the Nigerian economy may go into recession, they maintained that there is need for the government of the day to be proactive, as the country may not survive another recession.

In a telephone interview with Daily Champion, Former President, Association of National Accountants of Nigeria (ANAN), Dr. Samuel Nzekwe was of the view that there need for the government to look at how to develop the solid mineral sector so as to patronize less the advanced economies.

According to him, one advantage the COVID 19 pandemic brought to Nigeria is that politicians are now at home, ready to use the ill equipped medical facilities in the country.

“It is a clarion call for us to look inwards, we have alternative means of generating revenue for the country but our leaders are playing politics about that. But this pandemic has come to teach us some sense, if they want to learn from it, they should learn and if they don’t want, let them wait maybe when another pandemic comes, we will all see where we are going to be.

“They can now use the health sector they left to wrought, they are going there now to receive treatment. Maybe this is going to be a wake up call for them to look back and stop stealing the nation’s money, let them invest everything in Nigeria. If we able to fix the health sector, education sector the country will be better.

“As it is now, Nigeria  as a country is not sure of food security, we should be talking of agriculture with full range of value chain, but we are playing politics about that. This is the time for them to look inwards and see where we have comparative advantage and leverage on that,” he said.

Nzekwe had predicted that the coronavirus outbreak was going pose global economic challenge at the end of the day.

He said, take Nigeria for instance, we do not have infrastructure to back up the productive sector.

“After the pandemic , it is going to take a long time for economies to recover. By now a lot of people must have lost their jobs, the informal sector has not been active because they have been on lock-down and by the time businesses are opened, people will have no purchasing power to buy. So it will take quit a long time for the Nigerian economy to pick up.

“Now the oil price is so low and the revenue from oil will be so minimal that it cannot fund 20 per cent of the kind of budget that we have now. So this global pandemic has taken Nigeria more than ten years back.

“Again, we don’t even know when the global pandemic is going to end. For me, it has reduced world economy to the extent that it is going to take quit a long time for stability to take place.

 Since the Great Depression of the 1920s and 1930s, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned on Thursday,” he said.

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