Kemi Adeosun, minister of finance, says Nigeria has
had a very rough economic route over the past two
years, but believes the worst is over.

Speaking at the just concluded Bloomberg, NSE
(Nigerian Stock Exchange) forum, Adeosun said
Nigeria has learnt hard lessons from its immediate
past and is moving from the rough road to the path of
sustainable development.

“I would like to start by quoting Tai Solarin, one of our
most famous social activists and thinkers. In 1964, he
wrote a famous piece, ‘may your road be rough’.
Permit me, with all copyrights recognised, to quote
from it,” she said.

“I am not cursing you; I am wishing you what I wish
myself every year. I therefore repeat, may you have a
hard time this year, may there be plenty of troubles for
you this year! If you are not so sure what you should
say back, why not just say, ‘Same to you’? I ask for no
more. Our successes are conditioned by the amount of
risk we are ready to take”.

“His paper continues as follows; ‘the big fish is never
caught in shallow waters, you have to go into the open
sea for it. The biggest businessmen make decisions
with lightning speed and carry them out with equal
celerity. They do not dare delay or dally; time would
pass them by if they did. The biggest successes are
preceded by the greatest of heart-burnings.”

She said the Buhari-led administration is
benchmarking itself against Indonesia and Egypt, not
oil rich nations like Saudi Arabia and is working to
undo the mistakes of the past.

“I will not read the entire piece but in essence, it
captures the well-known concept that the best
progress is often borne out of the most adverse
conditions. I think there is a universal acceptance of
this concept and equal acceptance, that the past 2
years have been a ‘rough road’ in economic terms for
Nigeria.

“I think there is now a consensus that the worst is
over but we must now act with conviction to ensure
that we do not repeat those mistakes that left us so
vulnerable.

“The President Muhammadu Buhari led administration
has an ambitious but fundamentally different vision for
this economy. We believe that Nigeria is an ‘oil-plus’
economy. We will benchmark ourselves not against
the Saudis’ with their 30 Million population and 10
Million barrels of oil, but rather, with the Indonesians
with their 257 Million population and 800,000 barrels
of oil or Egypt with their 91 Million population and
490,000 barrels of oil. This has been encapsulated in
the recently released Economic Recovery and Growth
Plan.

“Nigeria has the potential to be regionally dominant
however, central to realising that potential, are 3 key
factors: best value in the deployment of Government
resources with a focus on enabling infrastructure;
partnership with the private sector in service delivery
and extension of the ‘user-pays concept’; effective
revenue mobilisation.”

Adeosun added that “just 14 Million tax payers out of
an estimated 69.9 Million who are economically
active,” stating that this administration is “doing more
with less and we will continue to do so”.

TheCable