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Government Should Patronise Local Investors – Policy Analyst

A Nigerian policy analyst has advised the government to patronise local investors in order to boost the economy. Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on … Continue reading Government Should Patronise Local Investors – Policy Analyst


bolaji ogunseye on local investorsA Nigerian policy analyst has advised the government to patronise local investors in order to boost the economy.

Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Tuesday, Mr Bolaji Ogunseye, said that “I think the government should look for mechanisms by which you give a push to local investors.

“The word local investors doesn’t mean poor investors – there are solid high-led worth local investors. You look at the various layers- from the bottom to the top; exploitation and production, value addition to raw materials among others in considering them”, he said.

Talking about his expectation of the visit of the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Christine Lagarde, the analyst said that “it’s interesting that a visit by an IMF Chief has almost become a central talking point in the whole country.

“My attitude is what is the development economics thinking; the logic behind it?

“Having that as the ongoing narrative for the Nigerian economy, its far more important than one visit by the head of one specialise agency”.

Mr Ogunseye further said that “I’m not coming from a position that IMF is bad, a lot of the things that IMF may want to talk about – macro policy, monetary policy, and fiscal policy among others are quite frankly common sense things, if you are running your economy well”.

While giving his opinion about the benefits of the devaluation of the Naira in relation to the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), Mr Ogunseye said that “if you must devalue the Naira, it has a direct knock-on effect on inflation” and “inflation comes with devaluation.

Answering a question on how the government plans to remove all import restriction, the policy analyst said that “the IMF is not a global supervisor of government.

“My advice to this government is that I think we should not put all our hopes for the structural correction of the Nigerian economy on one out of four budgets.

“We need to produce more goods in the country and the government should make itself less of an obstructionist to those who want to produce.

“We should integrate, solidly, our economy with that of other West African countries”, he advised.

The Managing Director of the IMF arrived Nigeria for a four-day official visit during which she will meet President Muhammadu Buhari.

The meeting is expected to help strengthen the IMF’s partnership with the largest economy in Africa and to discuss how to address Nigeria’s economic challenges and the impact of low oil prices.