Oh! What a year!!! <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nQ1 \u2013 Old Naira in new colours & election palaver<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nIn Q1\u201923, there was the advent of the \u201cOld Naira in New Colours\u201d<\/em><\/strong>. POS operators were bilking the people and making out like bandits with a cash premium of 20%. If you give them 10k by transfer, they pay you 8k in cash. When asked, some claimed that they did not ask questions about the cost of COVID tests, please don\u2019t ask me any questions. If you want money, pay the fees, if not please \u201cVamus\u201d, <\/em><\/strong>I can\u2019t shout.<\/p>\nMost urban dwellers hoped for election liberation only to find out that democracy only means 100 fools cannot make a wise decision. They saw that INEC was not OPEC and that BVAS had become \u201cNo MAS\u201d<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 meaning \u201cNo More\u201d<\/em><\/strong> in Spanish<\/p>\nQ2-Q3 – Inauguration, litigation & celebration<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nSubsidies are Gone with the Wind. The celebrations that followed the bold reform statements were short-lived. Expectations that subsidy was a silver bullet that solved all problems was followed by frustration and a crisis of false expectations. Most citizens yelled \u2013 \u201ctake us back to the past\u201d<\/em><\/strong>. The political capital of the slim mandate of Feb 25 was now wearing thin. The people felt that palliatives were for the pockets of politicians, and it was more about sharing spoils.<\/p>\nQ3-Q4 \u2013 Investor road shows with no dollars to show<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nThe leadership team had vigorously marketed the reform agenda across most financial centres in the world. At first, in what sounded like a fairy tale, like most frontier market currencies, the Naira rallied temporarily to N900\/$ based on promises of new money during the Independence Day broadcast. It finally fell to N1,250\/$, which is far less than its real value (PPP) of N810\/$. Many investors have moved from renewed hope mode to saying \u201cwhatever\u201d.<\/p>\n
2024: Its either slow recovery or lights out <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nMoody\u2019s has upgraded Nigeria\u2019s economic outlook from stable to positive even though the credit rating is still Junk.<\/p>\n
The president\u2019s men now have no choice but to roll up their sleeves and do the heavy lifting. They need to address the fundamentals and remember a few rules of economics:<\/p>\n
\n- Economic policies matter only in so far as they make people happier \u2013 Andrew Oswald (1953)<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n
- That there is a reason why diamonds cost more than water \u2013 The paradox of value.<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n
- Population growth keeps us poor – (As there is not enough food for all, some die from hunger).<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n
- Unemployment is not a choice.<\/li>\n
- Distortions may be linked, and it may not be possible for the government to remove some of them \u2013 The general theory of the second-best<\/em><\/strong><\/li>\n
- Robert Solow, the Great Economist says that \u201cover time, all countries will be rich\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Therefore, as we go into 2024, a leap year that should bring good tidings, the trend must be your friend.<\/p>\n
In the latest LBS Breakfast session, Bismarck Rewane and the FDC Think Tank analyzed these economic events, providing insights into the challenges of 2023 and an outlook for 2024.<\/p>\n
Enjoy your read\u2026[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[vc_row][vc_column][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Dear Subscriber, As most economists and investors wonder how we survived a tumultuous 2023, only four words come to the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fdcng.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121466"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fdcng.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fdcng.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fdcng.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fdcng.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121466"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fdcng.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121467,"href":"https:\/\/fdcng.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121466\/revisions\/121467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fdcng.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fdcng.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fdcng.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}