According to participants in the Nigerian economic system, a complete reform of the country’s economic strategy is the only option to stop the inflation rate from continuing to grow.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) recently announced its consumer price index (CPI) for November 2022. In response, stakeholders stated it was time to start over and identify the issue.
According to the NBS report, Nigeria’s inflation rate increased to 21.47 percent in November from the 21.09 percent reported in October 2022 for the tenth consecutive month.
In a telephone interview with The Guardian, Mrs. Titilayo Fowokan, a council member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN), said that the country’s ongoing increase in inflation is evidence that its economic policies and programs have consistently been flawed.
She said that, “you can’t continue to do the same thing and expect a different result. This is the time to lay the cards on the table, bring in economic experts to examine our system, spot the problem and proffer solutions. ”
She asserted that Nigeria cannot continue in this manner since the high cost of living is having a detrimental effect on people’s standards of living.
“This rise in inflation is having a toll on the livelihood of the people and lowering our living standards. We need to go back to the drawing board, we’ve also been having fuel scarcity every now and then, can’t we find a lasting solution to it?”
Dr. Muda Yusuf, the founder and CEO of the Center for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE), claimed that in order to combat inflation, urgent government action is needed to address the problems plaguing the supply side of the economy.
“We need to address the issue of production and productivity constraints, we need to fix the dysfunctional forex policy, and institution of fiscal reforms to curb escalating deficit spending,” Yusuf said, adding, “to give producers and citizens some relief, the government could tweak the tariff policies by granting concessionary import duty on intermediate products for industrialists, especially those in the food processing segments of the agriculture value chain.”
Dr. Sam Nzekwe, a former president of the Association of National Accountants of Nigeria (ANAN), also made a statement, saying that the government should reevaluate its objectives and put output first.
According to him, Nigeria will keep importing inflation as long as it continues to import practically everything it requires.
We must produce, and the government must foster an environment that allows industries to flourish, according to Nzekwe.
He added that one cannot ignore how current elections are affecting the availability of money. And these funds “are not backed by any constructive activity,” he continued.
Comrade Emma Onwubiko, a rights activist and national coordinator for the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), claimed that the restoration of economic stability in Nigeria is one area in which President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration has entirely lost the plot.
The Chief Executive Officer of Dairy Hills Limited, Kelvin Emmanuel, claimed that the 0.34% increase in core inflation from 21.09% to 21.43% and the corresponding 0.41% increase in food inflation from 23.72% to 24.13% are evidence that currency depreciation and devaluation caused by the use of a fixed exchange rate mechanism without liquidity support is significantly boosting both cost-push and demand-pull inflation buffers.
“The second factor driving inflation upwards is the refusal of the Central Bank to rein in its continuous violation of ways and means of lending to the Federal Government as a means to cover for budget deficits”, he continued.
