Backstopping The Naira, By Ifeanyi Uddin
About a year ago (May 22, 2013) Ben Bernanke, then Chair of the US Federal Reserve System, spooked the markets. In his address to the US Congress’ Joint Economic Committee, he indicated that depending on emerging data, the US' central bank could commence unwinding (over the next two Federal Open…
Monetary Policy, Looking Ahead, By Ifeanyi Uddin
"Calm before a raging storm"! This was how a participant at a discussion, last week, described the state of the economy. I am privileged, every week before the Central Bank of Nigeria's (CBN) rate-setting committee's meeting, to sit at a table where bank treasurers and their economist friends dwell on…
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Why The President Matters, By Ifeanyi Uddin
One of the wackier arguments with which boosters of the Goodluck Jonathan administration have met the charge that his government has been unusually feckless in its response to the recent abductions of schoolgirls in Chibok is that the whole affair is a prank. The "why?" of what would then qualify…
Before It All Unravels, By Ifeanyi Uddin
Can one mourn too much? Are there circumstances in one's life that one ought not to give up on? Are there bounds to the weight a camel can carry? Must that last straw, the one that compromises the camel's back, be the heaviest? These are, indeed, very difficult times. An…
Nigeria – What Manner of Leaders, By Ifeanyi Uddin
There is no question but that the quality of our national leadership has deteriorated of late. The consequences of these are particularly telling at the economic level. Despite the roseate statistics favoured by the incumbent administration and its supporters, even they do not deny that the incidence of poverty (however…
Why I Would Not Vote Next Year, By Ifeanyi Uddin
Come St. Valentine’s Day, 2015, I would not vote in the general elections scheduled for that day. I also did not vote in the 2011 general elections. Then, I was certain that the larger number of our compatriots were mistaken on the “I had no shoes growing up” narrative of…
Still on the New GDP Numbers, By Ifeanyi Uddin
There was no question but that the new domestic output numbers for the Nigerian economy was going to attract much interest. A rare event in the nation's calendar, and a momentous result, it has attracted interest at home and abroad. Actually, it has elicited much more interest from the talking…
On The New GDP Numbers, By Ifeanyi Uddin
So, finally, we are a bigger economy than South Africa. Indeed, at US$509 billion (estimates for last year), we now are the continent's biggest economy — in 2012, the World Bank had put South Africa’s GDP at US$384bn and Nigeria’s at US$263bn. At about yesterday, at a press conference at…
Measuring Bank Liquidity, By Ifeanyi Uddin
In the last four years, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has tightened monetary conditions even as inflation moved into and seemed comfortable in the single digit range — an unusual experience for this economy. The organised private sector has made much of how these tight conditions, especially high interest…
Removing the Fuel Subsidy, By Ifeanyi Uddin
The queues are back at the filling stations; and our lived experience has taken a turn for the worse; a few fires have started. Yet, this is but a seasonal experience. Like the rains which will soon start to fall, methinks our response ought to be to prepare to contain…
