BY IKHILI EBALU, BENIN CITY
A university Don, Prof. DavId Osikhena Umoru has called on the Federal Government to put an end to the devaluation of Naira in the country.
Prof Umoru made the call while delivering the Edo State University Uzairue 4th Inagural Lecture series titled “Devaluation of Naira, Shocks, and Realities: Evidence Disciplining Strength on Wednesday.
Umoru, a professor of Applied Monetary and Financial Economics in the department of Art, Management and Social Sciences, Edo university Uzairue, said there has to be production for export before contemplating devaluing the Naira.
He said Nigerian government must put an end to Naira devaluation which is anchored on the fact that the Naira exchange rate management is not a topic of probability.
According to him, the IMF and the World Bank ought to be cognisant of the fact that the economics that underlie the empiricism of Naira exchange rates in relation to foreign currencies interprets the fact that economic growth and development of Nigeria is being short changed so shamefully as we have the valueless Naira note as the only medium of exchange in our possession.
“There has to be production for export before contemplating devaluing Naira, hence, the Nigerian government must disagree with the conditionalities of the IMF authorities and insists on non devaluation of the Naira.
“The central monetary authority must not forget that the exchange rate is basically a price and in view of the collapse of oil price at the global market; auxiliary devaluation of the Naira would only lower the purchasing power of the final consumers and afterwards exacerbate economic life of Nigerians,” Umoru said.
He noted that the Nigerian economy is fiscally overriding not withstanding money being an integral part of all macroeconomic variables.
He added that inconsistent macroeconomic policies are detriment to the real effective Naira-Dollar exchange rate and to employment generation.
He urged Central Bank of Nigeria to ensure that fiscal and monetary policies do cooperate rather than entering into a conflict with each other in the short run.
“Nigerian political forces, illicit forex traders and collaborators with foreign interest would not totally give way to market forces when it comes to Naira/Dollar exchange rate determination as they continually hype the market by manipulating the parallel rate.
“I have regard for the totality of the prevailing macroeconomic and financial outlooks of the Nigerian economy. And this have made me to foresee a Nigerian state of affairs where the Naira wouid be exchanged at N2000 for one US Dollar.
According to him, Should the apex monetary authority with all his enabling laws fail to defeat the unlawful activities of currency traders who gather effortlessly to cause forex scarcity in the country.
Adding that, To save the value of the Naira, the Federal Government has to tenaciously work against a build up of the underlying fundamentals of the Nigerian economy. This entails managing unfriendly economic indicators in a downward direction.
“This indicators includes, inflation rate, interest rate, debt stock and unemployment,” he said.
The don, however, called on the government to strengthen non oil production and rejuvenate the power sector in order to arrest the ugly Nigerian economic scenario.
“To save the soul of Nigerian economy through the worth of her Naira, Nigerian as a country must strengthen production of non-oil export commodities ranging from agricultural production to industrial production that covers manufacturing, product assembly, conversion of raw materials into components, as well as construction.
He further stated that, This would broaden the horizon of non-oil export and make Nigeria’s export highly competitive for a devaluation policy to improve the country’s current account trade balance.
“In this regard, sectoral diversification policies that favour industrialisation, construction activities, solid minerals and agriculture were recommended, this would in addition diversity the Nigerian economy away from oil export,” he said.
Earlier in his welcome address, the Vice Chancellor of the university, Engr. Prof. Emmanuel Aluyor said that university has consistently set the pace in the delivery of quality education with state of the arts educational tools and providing the needed solution in a country whose educational infrastructure has been bedeviled by a plethora problems.
He said the university as an emerging world-class university in Nigeria has continue to bridge the gap and do all within its capacity to curb education tourism in the country.
The VC reiterated that over the years, the university has attained a pride of place in the comity of Universities in Nigeria and world over.
He further revealed that the university is a full member of the Association of African Universities (AAU); Full member of the International Association of Universities (IAU); Admission into the Consortium of New Sub-Saharan Medical Schools (CONSAMS).
While congratulating Prof Umoru, the VC described Prof Umoru as a highly experienced economist and scientific researcher whose focus is to find solutions to socio-economic challenges through effective contributions to knowledge, execution of demand-driven, globally competitive researches with relevance to the economic development of nations.