The Vultures are Gathering....

by Eze Eluchie,

Informed observers and commentators on the Nigerian socio-economic and political terrain, indigenous and foreign, all agree on one fact regarding the swift collapse of the national economy – Nigeria’s economic depression is policy-induced! It certainly is not by accident that a country of several million dynamic and hardworking peoples, that had successfully begun to diversify itself from a uni-product economy to one hinged on diverse sources suddenly awakes to find its fortunes violently depleted and reversed, with the supervisors of the national economy each passing day churning more regulations geared towards causing more harm and creating more confusion domestically and causing disinterest from foreign investors.

Those not familiar with the geo-politics of Africa’s erstwhile largest and fastest growing economy will wonder as to how any Government will be willing to deliberately ruin a national economy, cause great harm to the citizenry, heighten prospect of internal chaos, and ultimately destroy economic prospects and potentials. Well, welcome to the oddity of the Nigerian federation.

When at his assumption of office, the present Nigerian ruler, Muhammadu Buhari, a former dictator who had in his erstwhile stint in office over 30 years ago driven the economy into depression, embarked upon a global frolic of major capital cities of the world telling whosoever cared to listen that he was now presiding over the ‘most corrupt people in the world’, in one instance, agreeing with the former British Prime Minister, David Cameron’s categorization of Nigeria as being ‘fantastically corrupt’; and with the damaging effects of such self-deprecation just beginning to manifest the regime rolled out conflicting fiscal pronouncements, particularly in the area of accessing foreign exchange, amounting to policy somersaults which served scare off hundreds of multinational companies from Nigeria (including Airlines, Manufacturing and service-sector conglomerates); and eventually capping the dire situation by deliberate acts of maligning the Judiciary and Legislative arms of government creating an impression before all and sundry that Nigeria was a banana republic where powers resided and emanated from one single individual; the hand writing on the wall was clearly discernible to all who were discerning – Nigeria was being systematically and serially depleted with cynical ulterior motives.

Finally, those who doubted reality are now able to have a glimpse at the wider picture via the recent kite flown by those who are profiting tremendously from the deprecation of Nigeria: having succeeded in pauperizing the Nigerian State, depreciating the value of the country and its national assets, reeking in enormous profits from a fraudulent foreign exchange regime, suggestions are now being arrogantly floated that the remaining real assets of the Nigerian State should be auctioned off for peanuts to supposedly ‘reinvigorate the economy’. Really? Nigeria’s prime national asset, the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) operations is now being particularly targeted by these hawks. Also in their sights are the Refineries, and other critical national infrastructure such as Water projects and Roads.

If these vultures are so smart and so rich, why don’t they build their LNG and Refinery Plants and other critical infrastructure and compete with those built  with public funds?

Knowing how the fraudulent system works in Nigeria, an avalanche of ten-a-dime ‘experts’ (local and foreign) will be assembled to support the floated idea, more punitive fiscal and socio-economic policies will be rolled out to squeeze the populace into believing that anything that brings in whatever amount of foreign currency into the system is good, and pronto, the LNG Plants and Refineries, and other major critical infrastructure would be auctioned for peanuts to spurious portfolio-companies registered in some offshore tax havens by unscrupulous who will suddenly turn up in ‘Forbes list of the richest’, whilst the poverty caused locally will unleash more domestic unrest and conflict.

As these vultures gather, is there anything a Government populated by vultures and or their stooges can do to forestall an impending disaster? Nothing! The people have to decide what they want of themselves by themselves. The people where these assets are located have every right to resist brigandage in the name of governance or government policies.

Restructuring and renegotiation of the Nigerian contraption will minimize these vile practices.

Picture: Nigeria’s Liquefied Natural Gas plant, Bonny, one of the assets now in the sights of the vultures.