Former Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and now Emir of Kano, Alhaji Sanusi Lamido Sanusi bares his mind on President Buhari’s government economic policy recently… “If we do not expand the economy through wise investment, we can end up in classical Malthusian situation. If this government continues to behave the way the past government behaved, we will end up where Jonathan ended.”

“We are always blaming the past administration, but we have also made mistakes in this administration. The problem is that there is nothing we are facing today that we did not know what happened. That is the truth. We made mistakes, many of them deliberate. We ignored every single warning. Not building roads, not building power and other necessary infrastructure that can boost the economy and development of the country.”

“In 2010 when I was Governor of Central Bank, the government increased minimum wage to N18, 000. I protested, but they went ahead and borrowed money to pay. In 2012, as Governor of CBN, I said that this is an unsustainable wage bill. We need to reduce the size of public service, which fell on deaf ears. I believe we have started retracing our steps and we have to retrace our steps. If a policy is wrong, it is wrong and it has to be changed. A situation where we cannot process tomato and tomato paste is being imported from China is sad.”

“I’m a friend of this administration, but if they decide to run Nigeria aground, I will become the opposition. You are not good friends if you sit down with government officials and don’t tell them the truth. I will continue to say the truth. Nigeria must drop the habit of borrowing to pay salaries and service recurrent expenditures. There is nothing happening today that we didn’t forecast years ago because all actions have consequences.”

“Industrialisation potentials of Northern Nigeria was documented by Ahmadu Bello in 1962, 54 years after, there’s nothing to show. We created billionaires from oil subsidies in the past. We are making the same mistake with forex subsidies. As an emir, I can sit in my garden and make phone calls to access $10million @ N197 per $ then sell it off at nothing less than N300. With just a phone call, I’m making a profit of over a billion naira. That is what people are doing now.”

“Any system that allows you sit in your garden and make a billion naira without investing a kobo is a wrong system. We created the recession we are in now and I hope the President won’t make the mistakes Jonathan made. We are not being sincere when we say we are in a recession because of the fall in oil prices. What happened to other sectors?”

“I understand it’s painful when we pay for expensive fuel, but we must understand no system is perfect. Petroleum subsidy empowers a small group of criminals rather than the poor masses it was meant for. If you must subsidise anything, please it should be for production rather than consumption.”