– says Buhari’s not sick but resting
– explains why he won’t devalue the naira
PRESIDENCY yesterday debunked the claim that President Muhamnadu Buhari has been embarking on wasteful foreign trips, having traveled a record eighteen times in the last eight months of his tenure and frittered away an estimated One Million Dollars (USD$1,000 ,000) per trip.
The President is currently on a six- day vacation in the United Kingdom, an holiday that has generated so much controversy with some Nigerians insinuating that he was sick and had gone to seek medical care overseas.
Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina who addressed these issues while fielding questions on Politics Today, a programme on Channels Television, said the presidential trips were neither frivolous nor wasteful as perceived in some quarters. He also dispelled the rumors that the President was sick and may have been hospitalized in the last couple of days.
Adesina justified the trips made by his boss as well as his decision to take a few days off, said Buhari has been working hard to reposition Nigeria and needed some rest. He lamented that the critics of the Buhari government would always criticise him no matter what he does or failed to do.
He explained that every of the trips have been necessary and efforts were made to reduce the presidential delegation on each trip to a manageable size in order to cut cost.
On the state of the economy, Adesina gave an insight into the rationale behind
President Muhamadu Buhari’s refusal to devalue the naira as has been requested by the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and some private financial experts.
The presidential spokesman attributed the reluctance of the government to devalue the currency to the slide in the price of crude oil, Nigeria’s main foreign exchange earner and the need to ensure that the country’s economy remained afloat in the face of dwindling revenue.
Adesina said that though the Presidency had listened to several opinions on the the need to devalue the local currency, the fact that Nigeria’s economy was largely dependent on a single commodity whose price was on a rapid decline did not encourage the government to take such advice as that would be to the detriment of the national economy.
“The thing about economics is that there are different schools. There are some who belong to a certain school who believe that this is the way to go but another group who belong to another school of thought would say that is not the way to go. So at any given time, a government would listen to those it as put together as its economic team. Why would the President not devalue the naira? What does Nigeria export apart from petroleum? Nothing. Nothing. So if we don’t export any other thing apart from petroleum which price is down now and you devalue the naira, then you have killed the economy,” he said.
Adesina said that the President had once challenged the economic team and all proponents of devaluation of the naira to show him what Nigeria stood to benefit from such a devaluation at this time. He recalled that about a year ago, a barrel of oil sold for USD$120 but has dropped to as low as USD$27 per barrel in recent months before rising a little to USD$32 per barrel. According to him, such low prices were already enough challenges in terms of revenue streams, adding that the economy will be in a worse shape if the local currency was devalued at the same time.
He said that the time had come for Nigeria to stop paying lip service to the issue of diversification of the economy. Adesina lamented that whereas the proposal to diversify the economy had remained on the drawing board for over forty years, there as been no clear- cut programme to diversify the economy.
According to him, the Buhari administration was poised to change the story by its commitment to focus on agriculture and solid minerals.
On the security situation in the NorthEast and the claims by some persons that the Boko Haram terrorists were still holding some territories in Borno State, Adesina said that those painting such a gloomy picture were ignorant of the current security reports from the region. He said that the latest report from the Borno State government corroborates the position of the Nigerian military that the Boko Haram insurgents had been defeated and pushed out of Nigeria.
“The latest position is the one given by Governor Ibrahim Shettima of Borno State, about one hour ago in which he faulted Senator Baba Garbai who said that half of Borno was under Boko Haram occupation. He said that out of their twenty seven local government areas, not a single one is occupied by Boko Haram. Senatir Garbai made his statement in the morning. It’s a stake position. A superior information as come to knock out what he said and governor said he was shocked that Senator Garbai actually said that because it was not true,” Adesina said.
As part of the gains of the numerous foreign trips, Adesina disclosed that the federal government had received some assistance in terms of military equipment and training of personnel to boost the war against the insurgency in parts of the country.