Obasanjo Led Nigeria’s Most Successful Economic Period – El-Rufai
BY OUR CORRESPONDENT – Still smarting from the political intrigues and power play that schemed him out of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led Federal Executive Council (FEC), the immediate past Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai has knocked the last eight years of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as not moving Nigeria forward economy wise.
For him, the second term performance of former President Olusegun Obasanjo remains the best and yielded the most visible democracy dividends in terms of economic growth, job creation, and inflation rate in Nigeria.
In veiled support for critics who have continuously expressed disappointment with the Muhammadu Buhari-led government, Mallam El-Rufai, who served as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister during Obasanjo’s administration, said Nigeria experienced economic prosperity during the second term that ran from May 2003 to May 2007.
According to the former governor, besides returning to “proper integrated planning”, Nigeria “also got lucky” during the said period with quite a number of milestones recorded in the economic sector.
The man, popularly referred to as the “Accidental Civil Servant”, stated this position on Friday during a session at Africa In the World conference held in Stellenbosch, South Africa.
Clearly canvassing the need for proper planning to aid the economic growth of any country, Mallam el-Rufai said; “We have a Planning Commission in Nigeria but it has not been as effective. If you look at Nigeria’s economic trajectory, the most successful four to five-year period of economic growth, job creation, and reduced inflation was the period of the second term of President Obasanjo in 2003 to 2007, when for the first time, the country went back into proper integrated planning and we also got lucky.”
He said aside from the Oil prices that began to rise, the Obasanjo government “did not waste the windfall because we had planned.
“We had an excess crude account (ECA) that was based on the fiscal rule that any surpluses above a certain benchmark price of crude oil should go to that savings account. And with that, we were able to get rid of all our foreign debt.”
Further maintaining that Nigeria’s fiscal vigour was at its best in 2007, he said the development was such that when the global financial crisis occurred in the year 2008, “Nigeria did not feel anything”.
Acknowledging the privilege of being part of that era, el-Rufai said; “Nothing was felt in Nigeria because Nigeria had a big savings account; we had huge reserves and we were able to absorb the shock without any internal problems, unlike most countries.”
The ex-Kaduna State Chief Executive said that to achieve accelerated economic growth, long-term and coordinated planning as well as the inclusion of all stakeholders remain very crucial.
Obasanjo, who was a former Military Head of State, got elected 1999 and won his re-election in 2003 for a second term that terminated in 2007, as the first democratically elected President of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic.
