The Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, has said that the next Nigerian President must make difficult economic choices to set Nigeria on the path to economic growth at the expense of his/her re-election.
This was made known by El-Rufai at the World Bank’s Nigeria Development Update and Country Economic Memorandum on Thursday in Abuja attended by Nairametrics.
Next Nigerian president must take difficult decisions, do one term
El-Rufai insisted that hard decisions are needed to take Nigeria back to the decade of growth it experienced under the President Obasanjo administration.
El-Rufai stated that Nigeria’s next president must be willing to take very difficult, immediate and urgent decisions that will make the country go through maybe 3-5 years of pain, and reverse the trajectory.
- He said, “I am proud to be a member of the Obasanjo administration that decade of growth the 2010 trajectory, we were in that government, and we knew what the President had to do, ready to act” he said.
- “The next President of Nigeria must be willing to do one term and reverse Nigeria’s poor economic trajectory,
He added that The consensus is there, citing that if most jobs are in the private sector, that is where the GDP growth would come from as the private sector agrees on certain things, including the state governments,
- He pointed out, “However the 2 elephants in the room are subsidy and exchange rate.
- ”Those at the receiving end are the private sector and subnational, what we need is a president willing to take risks, and reverse the trajectory of Nigeria on a permanent basis even at the cost of reelection.
- “The results will not begin to show until after 3-5 years, things will take time to get better.”
The World Bank said at the event that Nigeria’s poor economic performance compounded by the outbreak of Covid-19 in 2019 led to cumulative inflation between 2019 and 2022, which was 66%.
He noted that Nigeria’s minimum wage in nominal value in 2019 was N30,000 which was $82 in dollar terms.
- The World Bank said, “The real minimum wage in naira in 2022, after discounting for inflation is N19,355” adding that at dollar value terms it is $26 in 2022 “ after discounting for both inflation and exchange rate depreciations”
