*Why Dele Momodu Is Wrong On Seeing No Light At The End of The Tunnel*
I just read my egbon Dele Momodu’s piece insisting that he does not see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I must disagree with him.
But before I do, please let it be known to all that Dele Momodu is someone I love, respect and cherish, and disagreeing with him does not mean disavowing him.
Egbon Dele, you are a source of inspiration to me and others. May God bless you.
Having said that, let us examine some salient points.
For the first time in perhaps almost forever, Nigeria is now exporting more than she is importing. To give exact figures, in the first quarter of 2024, Nigeria had a trade surplus of ₦6,527 billion. This was a record. But that record only lasted for three months.
By the second quarter of 2024, Nigeria’s trade surplus increased 6.5% to ₦6,945 billion from ₦6,527 billion, breaking the previous record. Thus meant that by Half Year 2024, we had exported enough goods and services to cover half our 2024 budget costs of ₦28.77 trillion.
Nobody, or government has achieved this before Tinubu. Egbon, please fact-check me.
The economic reforms of the Tinubu administration has moved us from consumption to production, making us a prosumer nation (a country that consumes what she produces).
And then there is the issue of our capital market.
The Nigerian Stock Exchange has broken four records in the last sixteen months.
On Wednesday, November 1, 2023, Bloomberg reported that the NGX hit its highest level ever since its creation when it rose 1.9% on a single day to hit 70,581.76 All Shares Index.
Then again, on January 10, 2024, the Nigerian Stock Exchange gained ₦1.6 trillion in a single day and achieved an All Shares Index of 83,191.84, another record.
Yet again, on Wednesday, January 24, 2024, just two weeks later, our stock exchange crossed the 100,000 basis point mark, setting a new all-time high record and overtaking Argentina as the world’s most profitable stock market.
Finally, on Thursday, March 28, 2024, the NGX peaked at 104,562.06, representing a 39.84% increase year-to-date, making it the second-best performing exchange in Africa.
With the above facts, would it still be accurate to maintain that one does not see light at the end of the tunnel?
But I am not done.
Nigeria, as of October 2024, has achieved backward integration in oil refineries for the first time in almost forty years. This means we no longer need to import Premium Motor Spirits or petrol.
As a matter of fact, with the coming on stream of the Dangote Refinery, Nigeria is now a net exporter of finished petroleum products.
Only last week, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited notified the Nigerian Upstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) that it has stopped placing orders for fuel imports because the nation is now self-sufficient in the product.
If we as a nation move from importing fuel to exporting fuel and you still do not see the light at the end of the tunnel, it may mean that perhaps your vision may need adjustments.
But there is more. On Thursday, September 19, 2024, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria revealed that our foreign reserves have risen to $39.07 billion. This is significant because it means Nigeria will not go the way of Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
This has only been made possible because our CBN has moved from the old bad habit of prioritising artificial currency stability over reserve accumulation.
Egbon, would you not say that an increase of 18.4% in our foreign reserve is a plus for our economy?
And finally, in a pièce de résistance, Nigeria’s economy, according to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, grew by a whopping 3.19% in the second quarter of 2024 compared with the same quarter last year.
Further breaking it down, the oil and gas sector grew by 10.15%, agriculture rose by 1.41%, and industrial output increased by 3.53%.
In all of these, it is hard to see how anyone could say they see no light at the end of the tunnel in such a scenario.
Egbon Dele, I noticed that you did not cite even one empirical fact in your piece. Rather, you said, “I’ve lived long enough in this country called Nigeria. I’ve listened to all the sweet talks by politicians. I have yet to see the sign of that light at the end of the tunnel.”
You further said, “At my age, I’m almost giving up on anything happening from them because we can see the signs. I doubt that much will come out of what is going on because even the people surrounding the President, most of them are not ready for the change.”
But egbon, should we not focus on facts rather than sentiments? Data and statistics will not lie to you like your emotions. That is why sailors depend on navigation, rather than gut feelings, to guide them safely back to land on a dark and stormy night out at sea.
You, egbon Dele Momodu, and others who assume as you do, fail to understand that President Bola Tinubu did not bring hardship to Nigeria. That hardship was always there, because we were not producing enough, yet we were living above our means.
What the President has done is to remove the feeding bottle of borrowing, which we had hitherto used to avoid living within our means.
By making it impossible for us to sustain our fake lifestyle of taking foreign loans to subsidise the Naira and pay fuel subsidy, as well as artificially reduce the price of electricity, the President has forced Nigerians to come to terms with reality and live within our means.
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If you think taking foreign loans to subsidise the Naira and make imports cheaper than locally manufactured goods is ‘light at the end of the tunnel’, then I would respectfully have to disagree.
If rice from Thailand is now too expensive for us as Nigerians, we should not write long articles or pray for miracles. God has already given us rain and land, just as He gave Thailand. It is now left to us to use our brains and hands. Farm for your survival.
Nigerians have seed money. Please fact-check me: We import $200 million worth of human hair wigs for our women every year. £25 million worth of Scotch whiskey and $75 million French champagne. We do not need subsidised dollars. If you give it to us, we will piss it away on useless imports that add no or low value to our GDP.
President Bola Tinubu’s reforms are the right step in the right direction, and I already see cascades of light, but we are not even near the end of the tunnel.
Reno Omokri
Gospeller. Deep Thinker. #TableShaker.
