Jumbo Brown

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Posted by admin | Posted in Agriculture & Forestry | Posted on 06-09-2008

Jumbo Brown

The great debate; why Soludo must go (had to go)

Like biblical Isaac, Soludo will have to be led to the slaughter table to save the Nigerian economy from total disintegration. What is his crime? What was Isaacâ€™s crime? But Soludo is not Isaac and so there many reasons to persecute Soludo. A few will suffice here.

His first and most fatal crime was the wicked and reckless annihilation of more than 64 Nigerian banks for no good reason. Here is a man who came in and met 89 vibrant and active Nigerian banks. The banks were evenly distributed all over the country. Every tribe could boast of a bank. The Northerners had theirs, the Westerners had theirs and the Igbos had theirs.

But Soludo was not happy with this perfect order of distribution. Like a man sent from some utopian planet he engineered a crazy and heartless recapitalization exercise that sent many of these banks under. Now only the Igbos, his kinsmen can boast of banks, with a sprinkling of Westerners. The North no longer has banks.

Instead of 89 banks, the highest number of banks in any African country, we now have only 25 banks. Did I say 25, no 23 now. Â Yes some may argue that the remaining banks are now stronger, employ more people, and finances the real sector more than the old 89 banks ever could, but that is all just talk. Why didnâ€™t Soludo, with his acclaimed brilliance look for a way to make the 89 banks stronger, instead of killing 64 to give super life to the remaining 25. For me that is no achievement.

Soludoâ€™s second sin is as heinous as the first. After creating 23 banks, he connived to ensure these banks declared super profits even as many Nigerians starved to death and many firms in the real sector collapsed. With his active backing, the remaining 25 Nigerian banks fed fat on the Nigerian economy. Every year, they declared jumbo profits, why other sectors declared jumbo losses. Where were they making this money from, if not the fact that Soludo was making life easier for them by giving them easy and unrestricted access to the vaults of the Central Bank of Nigeria, while it was closed to every other Nigerian?

Soludoâ€™s third sin deserves even worse punishment. In the midst of oil boom, he forced to the federal government to start building useless foreign reserves which could have been shared to make life easier for all Nigerians. Imagine, while Nigerians were dying of hunger, when our roads remained full of pot holes, when PHCN remained what it has always been, a provider of darkness, Soludo was busy telling the Federal Government not to build up external reserves. No one is sure what he planned doing with the money. I suspect, he planned taking it home to his village when he retired. Thank God, the Federal Government got on to his trick fast and has now decided to share the reserves.

Soludoâ€™s fourth sin is his failure to see that crude oil prices will fall. With his knowledge in economics, I cannot understand why Soludo was not able to see that crude oil prices will soon fall. In fact my take, is that he actually knew but failed to tell the Federal government wanting the federal government to fail because he had told them not to share the excess crude oil revenues and they did not listen to him. In fact, I even suspect he may have used his extensive international connections to force down the prices of crude oil to teach the federal government a lesson.

Soluldoâ€™s fifth sin is the worst crime in Nigeriaâ€™s history. This is particularly painful and borders on economic sabotage. In the face of the worst financial crunch in history, Soludo has refused all pleas made by well meaning; more knowledgeable, highly qualified Nigerians with Harvard certificates to print more Naira. It is a classic display of ignorance and economic illiteracy on the part of the Central Bank of Nigeria governor. What does it take to print more naira? Banks are complaining they cannot lend because they do not have money, why not just print more Naira and give to the banks to give to companies. In fact, why not print enough Naira for all Nigerians, so that at least, every Nigerian will become a millionaire. Print at least a million naira for every Nigerian, and there will no longer be poverty in Nigeria. Soludo is just wicked, why canâ€™t he listen to the intelligent argument of printing more Naira?

These are just few of the many reasons why Soludo must be sacrificed now to save the Nigerian economy. In the face of the worst global crisis, Nigeria needs a more humane CBN governor. We need a governor who will listen to the voice of reason, license as many banks as possible so that every tribe will have at least one MD/CEO, stop misadvising the Federal Government on building external reserves when we could spend this money as they are earned. Who told him Nigeria needs to save. But most importantly, we need a new CBN governor who will agree to print more Naira immediately; we need as many Naira notes as possible to turn Nigeria into a Zimbabwean paradise soonest.

Kwekwu Brown authored this article which was published in Business Times, a publication of Daily Times Nigeria plc

Umm...period question?

I got my 3rd period on Friday, 3 days early. I had the usual mumbo jumbo, and then yesterday and today...4+5 day, I think, I only got a bit of brown blood on my pad.....but some cramps.