NAN-HE-18
Assets
Monday Ijeh
Abuja, Sept. 20, 2016 (NAN) Two university dons on Tuesday cautioned the Federal Government against the sale of its assets to revive the nation’s economy from the current recession.
Professors Abdulhameed Ujo and Sule Magaji, both of the University of Abuja, described the call on government to sell its assets at the peak of recession as “selfish’’.
NAN recalls that Alhaji Aliko Dangote, the President of Dangote Group had in a recent interview advised that selling government’s assets could be the best way to get the country out of recession.
Dangote called on the Federal Government to consider selling of the Nigerian Liquified Natural Gas and other dormant but huge capital generating sectors and invest the proceeds in the economy.
However, in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja, the political scientist and the economist noted that recession time was not the best period to sell off government assets.
“To me, anybody advising government to sell its assets at this period of recession is not aware of the principles behind government ownership of some assets.
“If government has to disinvest, it must not be in haste and must be in a time when the economy is developing or developed such that the citizens can have a stake in the investment.
“But now that the recession is at its peak, it will amount to selling the economy.
“When this is done, government will have little or no say and will become government of the investors instead of government of the people,” Magaji said.
The economics professor urged those advising government to sell its assets to revive the economy to support investment in productive activities.
According to him, recession is not a new phenomenon in economics as many developed nations have gone through one form of recession or the other.
Magaji said that the approach to recovery could make or mar a country.
“It can make a country when the country is able to take appropriate measures while on the other hand, it can mar a country where it is misled to borrow or over-devalue its own currency.
“Continuous reliance on importation of goods and services as well as exportation of crude raw materials instead of finished products could hinder recovery during recession.
“It is actually dangerous for government to borrow for the purpose of importing food stuff and other items when there is recession.
“The implication is that the government will continue in a virtuous cycle of poverty,” Magaji told NAN.
For Prof. Ujo, the fundamental issues surrounding recession must first be addressed in order not to further deepen the current crisis.
According to the political scientist, those advocating for sale of government assets are businessmen wanting to buy them off from the government.
“Given the nature of our system, the asset will be sold to them at a giveaway price and that is why they are advocating for the sale.
“We all know that Nigeria is a capitalist state, but then we should be very careful in operating capitalism.
“There is no country that adopts rugged capitalism; even in the U.S., there are some elements of public-private sector involvement.
“So, let these Nigerian capitalists not draw us into it because most of them do not know the theory of capitalism,” Ujo said.
He called for a comprehensive research into how to get out of the country’s current recession and urged government to always weigh options before taking decisions.
“There are certain fundamental problems that are hindering the realisation of our economic policies and we must not run away from it.
“The major problem we have is our over reliance on oil and it becomes a major challenge because we failed to diversify the economy over the years,” he added. (NAN)
IMC/WOJ/GY
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Edited by Wole Ojetimi/Grace Yussuf