President Jonathan is right.Nigeria is not broke, By IsraelMark Ademola

Before now, I could bet my one month stipend that Nigeria was broke. Not even prime minister Ngozi Okonjo Iweala’s reeling out of imaginary and concocted statistical bullshit could make me believe otherwise. After all, that’s what she’s paid to do; lie to Nigerians.

It’s a very easy thing to do.  Our Harvard trained and highly overrated Madam Ngozi is good with stats. Her knowledge of economics may be a bit exaggerated but, prime minister Ngozi is smart. I’ll give it to her. She understands that, in a country with an embarrassingly poor literacy level, big grammar is all she needs to shut us up.

All she needed to do was to use big grammar and Harvard economics jargon to dabaru our head. That’s all! The economy is strong, inflation rate is single digit, fiscal deficit is on a downward trajectory, and below our threshold of…. , the exchange rate has remained stable, IMF said so, NTA seconded it, channels uploaded it …….. blah blah blah. She won’t stop there. She’d go ahead and invite her Harvard friends; Fitch, Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s, JP Morgan and Barclays to back her up. That’s when you hear Nigeria’s economy being rated A+, AA, AB…… etc. 

How do I explain all these to my mum? I have no idea what they are my self.

But even all that failed to convince me. I’ll tell you why. According to the debt management office, DMO, Nigeria’s domestic and external debt stood at N6.49 trillion and $6.67 billion, respectively as at March. What this means is this: The money that is supposed to be channeled into life changing projects is used in debt servicing.
 

Now, let’s do some maths.

According to 2013 budget, government plans to spend a whooping 100bn naira to service domestic debt alone. Remember, domestic debt is about 6.5trilion. What percent of 6.5trilion is 100bn? It’s simple arithmetic, you can find your way round it.
If the government decides not to borrow any more, which is not likely, and it continue servicing domestic debt at 100bn naira per year rate, it will take about 65 years to pay up. President Jonathan and his prime minister know they do not have to worry about that. It’s the headache of the yet unborn generation.
In May this year, prime minister Ngozi informed us of her plans to borrow additional $9bn from external sources such as India and China. This is exclusive of the N577bn she intend to borrow in order to balance up budget deficit. When did this woman, this brilliant Ngozi that helped in
negotiating a $12.4bn pay out to the Paris/London Clubs in 2006, become a glutton for borrowing? We may need to ask Ifa, or perhaps the chief priest of okija shrine to explain.

Now that I have told you why it’s impossible to refer to Nigeria as being financially solvent. Let me now tell you why I changed my view on that.

There’s this nosy online newspaper that love meddling into government’s business;
they hardly say anything good about our mild, gentle, humble and easy going President and his cabinet members. Mr President does not go to sleep without visiting this news portal. The first thing he does every morning, after morning devotion of course, is to visit Saharareporters and check if any can of worms had been opened. He has asked his men to hack this snooping site on several occasions but they just won’t stop. They’re just being political about issues. In fact, the opposition have hijacked Saharareporters, the same way they hijacked ASUU.

My views about Nigeria’s insolvency was rudely challenged by this lie; “How Aviation minister Stella Oduah Forced Cash Trapped Agency To Spend $1.6Million On Two BMW Armored Cars For Her”. That was a news caption on Saharareporters on Tuesday.
E gba mi ke e! This people haff lied again. Haba…… how can dey say a minister bought just two cars for $1.6milion? Wetin? Na plane? This Saharareporters sef, dem too dey lie joor!

Then came the denials. From NCAA to different political and cultural groups, they were all refuting the claim on behalf of the minister. I thought she was dumb o!
In fact, one brainless ignoramus that heads one sycophantic group called Aka Ikenga labelled those of us that would rather believe Saharareporters’ lie than the government’s truth, idiots.

“It is an idiot who believes what is written by Sahara Reporters. People should stop peddling falsehood. Don’t give a dog a bad name in order to hang that dog,” he said.

By now you should know why I now believe Nigeria is damn rich. For an agency saddled with the responsibility of securing our airspace, and has of course failed in this regard, to buy two armored cars worth about N130,000,000 each to secure the life of a minister, I mean what better proof could one seek?

We can afford $1.6m to protect the minister from her enemies. But when lecturers demand better infrastructure for our higher institutions, the government will send prime minister Ngozi to confuse us with stats and grammar. The economy will collapse…, we’ll not be able to pay salaries…. inflation will rise……blah blah blah.

If spent on our handicapped police force, $1.6million would secure hundreds of lives.
But the government just told us how unimportant and insignificant our lives are.

Nigeria is not broke, President Jonathan was right after all. Just that the money we have is for subsidizing the rich, the corrupt, the less than four percent of Nigerians that find their way to the corridors of power.

-Mark Ademola Israel
@Ademola_israel
israelmarc86@gmail.com