By Fabian Ekeruche
Lagos – Nigeria’s quest of achieving sustainable economic development may be dashed if its leaders do not fashion out a long-term economic philosophy for the nation.
Prof. Kingsley Moghalu, a former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). said this in Lagos on Wednesday while delivering the Fifth Goddy Jidenma Foundation Public Lecture.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the 2017 lecture was on “The Challenges of Economic Growth in Nigeria.’’
“To build a sustainable economic future, Nigeria must now address the aching need for a clear economic vision situated in a philosophical framework from which economic policy should be derived.
“The wealth of nations always has philosophical foundations. It is these fundamental understandings and how we understand and apply them that makes the difference between growth and stagnation.
“The vision thing matters because it sets out a national ambition to transform the economic structure and the lives of citizens against the canvass of both the medium and long-term and a clear destination,’’ Moghalu said.
According to him, Nigeria has failed to achieve high-quality economic growth because the country’s economy is managed mostly on an ad-hoc, reactive basis.
“It is a survival economy in which most governments that held political power have had no real economic vision or a strategy to execute such a vision successfully.’’
The expert said that a national economic vision anchored in a discernible economic philosophy would make policies derived from it more robust by imbuing such policies with internal consistency.
The professor urged the Federal Government to overhaul its economic management team by establishing a full time council of economic advisers, headed by a chairman that would serve as chief economic adviser.
He said that the chairman should be vested with the responsibility of researching and monitoring the economy 24 hours daily and advising the president on actions to take to enhance economic growth.
“This council, composed of 5 or 6 members, should be Nigeria’s economic team.
Ministers holding economic portfolios should not be members of this team.
“The council members should be experts in fiscal policy (in particular, taxation reform), industrial policy, trade policy, energy economics, economic history, economic philosophy and political economy,’’ Moghalu said.
NAN reports that the Goddy Jidenma Foundation is a non-profit organization established in memory of Arc Godwin Jidenma, who died on May 24, 2006 in Lagos.
Until his death he was a former Commissioner of Commerce and Industry in Anambra State.
The Foundation was set up in 2007 to advance and promote his ideals and passions which largely revolved around the celebration of the human essence. (NAN)