APC ‘won’t keep you in the dark’… but foresaw this recession years ago

From a mile away, the All Progressives Congress (APC) envisaged the current recession gripping the jugular of Nigeria’s economy, yet here we are.

Over half a decade ago, the party recognised the faulty structure of Nigeria’s economy, says Lai Mohammed, minister of information and culture.

The minister on Friday epitomised the honesty of the present government and assured Nigerians that they would never be kept in the dark no matter the situation.

He further noted that the recent report of the National Bureau of Statistic (NBS) is not all doom and gloom.

“What I can assure you is that we are on top of the situation and we are confident that the second half of the year will be better than the previous. Some of the things that impacted on this first two quarters were the acute fall in the price of crude oil.

“One thing we cannot take away from this government is that it is open, honest and will not keep Nigerians in the dark. About a month ago, the Minister of Finance actually told all of us that we are already technically in recession.

“Recession is not an event, it is a process. We knew more than five years ago that the country is heading towards recession because the structure of our economy is faulty. Faulty in the sense that for many years we have relied in one product, crude oil.

“Because of the crash in the cost of crude oil, we lost about 60 per cent of our earnings. Crude oil that used to sell for about 100 dollars per barrel, today we are hovering between 40 and 45 dollars per barrel.

“The 2016 budget projected 2.2 million barrels per day at 38 dollars. But because of the activities of the militants in the Niger Delta region, we are down to 1.2 to 1.4 million per barrels a day. “We have lost about one third of production capacity.

“Combine all these together we are heading for recession especially when there is no reserve to cushion the effects.”

Having had all of five years to come up with a solution in the event that a recession did occur, the jury is still out on whether the APC really did justice with its supposed luxury of foresight.