Former British Council Director in Abuja, David Roberts, has said Nigeria’s economy which posted a GDP growth of 3.46% in Quarter 4, is anything but messy.
Speaking in a statement, he said: “I lived and worked in Nigeria for many years as a British diplomat and one of the issues that most disturbed me was the sustenance of the fuel subsidy regime.
Why would a country with a severe infrastructural deficit invest more money on a wasteful expenditure such as cheap petrol, instead of building schools, hospitals, dams and a national railway system? It is evident that it had to go.
We joined the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in saying as much to the Nigerian government. And at long last, it is gone.
And everything we said that would happen after it goes is happening. Nigeria’s GDP is growing at 3.46 per cent while Europe is on the edge of recession.
Her stock market just crossed 100,000 basis points, overtaking Argentina’s as the world’s most profitable stock market. And capital importation is up by 66 per cent.
But that is not the best story. The cherry on the cake is that fuel importation into Nigeria is down 50 per cent. This means that Nigeria’s much-depleted federation account will rapidly be resuscitated.
More funds will trickle down to the federating states from the Federal Government, and if well utilised, Nigeria could attain her pre-2015 growth levels.
