FORMER Minister of Education, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, has described the economic policies being implemented by the Buhari administration as “archaic,” which she said were comparable to the ones he employed as a military head of state.
She said this while speaking at the “Platform,” a non-denominational conference, sponsored by the Covenant Christian Centre in Abuja on Saturday.
Ezekwesili, noting the downturn in the nation’s economy since the advent of the administration, said she observed that the policies were having negative effect on the masses.
According to her, “What did not work in 1984 cannot possibly be a solution in a global economy that’s much more integrated.”
The former minister added: “During the first coming of this our new president, a command and control economic system was adopted, and inflation spiraled, jobs were lost and the economic growth level dipped.
“In over one year, the president is still holding to the premise that command and control is the only way out, and we have lost the single digits inflation status we maintained in past administrations.
“The weakest and the most vulnerable suffer the impact of inflation the most. Enormous power is being abused as a result of archaic and opaque economic policies.”
She also suggested that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has lost its autonomy under the administration, counseling that the apex bank must regain such autonomy.
Her words: “We need to rethink the present monetary policy of the administration, actually the monetary policy was relatively safe guarded from political domination, it will do well to give a semblance of autonomy back to the Central Bank, so that the central bank would speak the language of economics and not this language of rhetoric and language of anecdote, and language of suppositions that are no longer premised on hard economic facts.”
Ezekwesili further said: “It is important that the central bank will retrace its steps and get back in right monetary policy making. Its crucial. If we lost that, it’s going to be tough to regain.”
