'Wrong tools, approach has kept recession going,' CBN chief

The Director of Policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Moses Tule, has said the current economic recession has persisted as a result of wrong approach and tools.

Tule, who made this known in Abuja during the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria, roundtable meeting, said the Federal Government has refused to allow professionals do their jobs.

“They have not allowed the professionals to do their jobs. They have not allowed the professional to provide the direction,” Tule said.

He further said: “Some came in as doctors into the macro-economic management and are giving the tools of medical doctors to advise on how to solve the problem of recession. Some came in as carpenters and they are using carpentry tools to advise on the problems of economic recession; some came in as engineers and they are using their tools to advise on how to address economic recession."

Tule also disclosed that the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) had in 2015 warned that the nation will slip into recession but that the warnings were not heeded.

The Director further said getting out of the economic recession is not possible without acknowledging and understanding how the nation plunged into recession.

Explaining how the economy got into recession, Tule said: “Oil prices are down. Not only are oil prices down, the Niger Delta Avengers have blown up oil producing facilities and export facilities, severally.

“When they blew the Forcados , it took government six months to fix Forcados. That was a loading bay. And after fixing it, they went back and blew it again. So we have oil prices and production going down. The implication is that foreign exchange earnings are going down, but unfortunately, our import expenditure is not going down. It is still in the region of N976 billion, monthly.”

Giving tips on possible ways to end the recession, he urged Nigerians to desist from the penchant for imported goods.

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“If we want to regain our place, how did we get here? We must address that question. The moment we began to prefer imported goods to our domestically produced goods, we laid the foundation and built the superstructure to where we are now. This is a conscious choice. Every country makes the choice where it wants to be. This is what we chose for ourselves as a country,” Tule said.

The Senate and several groups have called for the resignation of the CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele saying he is incapable of helping the country in the recession time.