The emir of Kano and former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mohammed Sanusi II, has described as “mathematical abracadabra” the rebasing of the Nigerian economy done in 2014.
The rebasing had lifted the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country from $270 billion to $510 billion surpassing South Africa’s economy to become the largest in Africa and increasing its share of subsaharan Africa GDP from 21.3 per cent to 31.7 per cent.
Speaking at Union Bank’s “The Next 100: A Call to Action” in Lagos on Wednesday, the Emir said the country did not add anything to the productivity yet claimed to be the largest economy on the continent.
“We beat our chest and clapped for ourselves for having become the largest economy through some mathematical abracadabra called rebasing.
“We did not produce a single thing more we just recalculated and computed and suddenly we became the biggest economy in Africa and we were happy. Not because we were producing more than we were producing yesterday but because we had done some recalculation.”
The former CBN governor who charged the government to be cautious in signing agreements said numbers and statistics only matter when they translate to improved living conditions of the populace.
He noted that while the poverty level of the country was put at around 60 per cent, “if we break down those numbers, in Lagos State, the poverty rate is 8.5 per cent, in Zamfara it is 91 per cent, in Kano it is 77 per cent, in Yobe it is 90 per cent and demographically these are the most populous parts of the country.
He said, “If we take those numbers and put human beings there and ask how many Nigerians out of these 180 million are living on less than $1 a day, there is not likely to be peace and stability in those areas in the future.
“We should think of economics not in terms of GDP or inflation or reserves but how many human beings are able to eat three square meals a day. How many young people have education and how many have opportunities in life.”
He noted that for the country to have peace across all regions, there must be prosperity that trickles down to its citizens.
His words: “We need to begin to ask ourselves as Africans and Nigerians whether we are thinking independently.
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“We need to continue to ask ourself in every transaction we go into how does this translate into the lives of human beings.
“Why are we surprised if on the streets of Zamfara or Kano we see children begging when we allow their fathers to marry three to four wives and give birth to 22 children on an income that can’t sustain the family.
“If they are on the streets why are we surprised that they do drugs and if they go on drugs why are we surprised that they end up radicalised.
“Nigeria is a county with 180 million people, the median age is 19 and in the next 20 years we will have at least 85 million Nigerians between the ages 30 and 40 which is the population of Germany the third largest economy in the world.
“What economy are we building for those people? It comes back to challenging the way we have been taught to think about economics. Look at all the ideological conversation. Take the debate on migration, we have all joined in saying migration is bad because Africans are migrating to Europe. It is bad for who? For Africans or Europeans?
“When Africans were forced to migrate in the 17th century held in chains and put on plantations as slaves was that bad? When Europeans migrated to Algeria and Tunisia, South Africa and Nigeria, setting up colonies and apartheid systems, that was migration why wasn’t that bad.
“Don’t we realise that Africans are migrating to Europe because of the world we have created. We have signed global agreements, we are strong supporters of free movement across borders bring in capital and repatriate it. A strong supporter of free movement of goods and services across markets.
“Why is it good for capital to move in and out, for raw materials to go and finished goods to come and so bad for human beings to go and share in the prosperity of those countries?
“Why is it okay for you to stay in New York and London and bring in money to the capital market buy shares, buy currency, make profit, take it back, but bad for Nigerians to follow that money and try to share in that prosperity.
“It is a conversation we must have. Global agreements we have signed, the ideologies we have signed up to. We cannot have a level playing field when we sign agreement that were designed and fashioned by partners in an unequal relationship.”
