CBN Gov Challenges Private Sector On Nigeria’s Economic Growth

BY EDMOND ODOK – The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele insists Nigerians require serious introspection to turnaround the country’s abundant potential for its desired economic development and prosperity.

He said given huge potentials within the economy, it is the responsibility of public and private sector operators to work hard and make Nigeria developed as other nations that were its peers at independence.

Ahead of the June 2, 2019 commencement of his second tenure, Emefiele said current trends demand all hands to be on deck in the task of building strong partnerships for sustainable economic growth and development that will have Nigeria moving in the direction of countries that have gone ahead to become developed economies.

Emefiele, who spoke at the University of Benin’s Eminent Persons’ Lecture in Benin on Wednesday, said all well-meaning Nigerians must now think seriously about what contributions they can make to improve the nation’s economic fortunes, instead of dwelling on the likely benefits individuals or groups can derive to advance their selfish interest.

The CBN Governor, in his presentation titled: ‘Beyond the Global Financial Crisis: Monetary Policy under Global Uncertainty’ said exploring and harnessing the country’s huge potential within the domestic space is all that Nigeria needs to become a developed economy as its peers.

Emefiele said the lecture, third in the series, represents CBN’s initiatives of promoting research and collaboration with Nigerian Universities for the purpose of developing policies and programmes that will advance the economic well-being of Nigerians.

He said it is important to note that constructive lessons emerged from the global financial crisis as many Central Banks worldwide deployed lots of positives in reshaping their countries’ monetary policy tools as well as address dips in their economies.

The apex bank chief, while highlighting how central banks across different economic blocs responded to the global financial crisis, said the impact had little effect on the Nigerian economy due to the various policy interventions by the apex bank.

He however noted that the drop-in commodity prices between 2014 and 2016, brought to the fore the limitations of conventional monetary policy tools.

“The 60 per cent drop in crude oil prices between 2014 and 2016, along with normalization of Monetary Policy by the United States’ Federal Reserve Bank in 2014, imposed severe constraints on the Nigerian economy, given our reliance on crude oil for over 90 percent of our export earnings and 60 percent of government revenue”, he said.

According to him, the CBN and the fiscal authorities, determined to contain the crisis, had to deploy both conventional and unconventional tools to support continuous growth of the economy, acknowledging that simply focusing on managing the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) would not have been adequate to get the Nigerian economy out of recession.