With the variety of reforms initiated under President Goodluck
Jonathan’s Transformation Agenda in key sectors of the economy, the
Deputy Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, in charge of Financial
System Stability, Kingsley Moghalu, says a new Nigeria could emerge in the next five years.
Mr. Moghalu, who was speaking during the launch of his book titled:
“Emerging Africa”, at the Nigeria Embassy in Washington DC on Sunday,
said the handing over of the power plants to private investors would set
the stage for improved electricity supply and reduction in the cost of
doing business in the country.
The deputy governor said he was confident that the country would have
a similar experience if individuals or private firms finally get
involved in the development of the nation’s refineries under the ongoing
reforms in the petroleum industry.
“The Federal Government has given priority attention to job creation
under the Transformation Agenda, and some very good results are already
being achieved in this regard, with almost a million jobs created in
Nigeria over the past year alone. That is quite a very significant
achievement,” he said, adding that the country must do more and never
rest on its oars.
Mr. Moghalu identified job creation as key to Africa’s future,
pointing out that economic development was inter-disciplinary and a
multi-dimensional affair, making the whole question of unemployment very
important for Africa’s economic future.
Africa, he noted, has a huge youth population that was going to
increase in the future, adding that it was important that jobs were
created at the pace of the continent’s population growth, or a way was
found to reduce the population growth.
The demographics, he said, was important, since it could create more
wealth through increased individual gross domestic products, GDP, per
capita. He, however, said without adequate job creation, the hundreds of
millions of dissatisfied youth in the future would not present a good
scenario for Africa.
On his 397-page book, Mr. Moghalu said it dealt with economics,
philosophy, strategy and public policy issues, as they were all
intertwined, since there was no one dimension to economic development.
Identifying leadership as a critical factor, Mr. Moghalu said this
was why he thought his book was very different from others already
written about Africa in the world economy in the last five years.
Acknowledging the book as one of the few written by a senior African
policy maker, he said the book tried to interrogate the conventional
wisdom where Africa was at this point in the global economy, taking a
fundamental look at what African economies and African countries needed
to do in order to create wealth and to prosper as nations.
“There is a difference between the wealth of individuals and the
wealth of nations. This book is concerned with the wealth of nations,”
he said, adding that he also looked at a number of issues, such as
globalisation, capitalism and free market, foreign investment,
international trade and the role of strategy and risk management in
Africa’s quest for development.
Nigeria’s Ambassador to the United States, Ade Adefuye, described the
book as a combination of philosophy, law, economics and politics,
noting that it brought out the best of the author.
While agreeing with most of the postulations in the book, Mr. Adefuye
urged governments in Africa, and in particular Nigeria, to take all
these principles and concepts and apply them to the peculiar situation
that the continent and Nigerians have found themselves. He also provided
some suggestions as the way forward.
He said he remained optimistic about Nigeria’s future, agreeing
particularly with Mr. Moghalu’s declaration that once the country got
the power supply situation right; there was no limit to where Nigeria
could be and what Nigeria could achieve.
“Moghalu has combined well his knowledge of all kinds of disciplines
and deep understanding and insight of what is happening in Nigeria and
Africa. This shows very much in his book,’’ Mr. Adefuye said.
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