Former Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, yesterday said that
there was no political will to save Nigeria's resources under the
Goodluck Jonathan administration. Okonjo-Iweala who said this while
speaking on “inequality, growth and resilience,” at George Washington
University, said Nigeria was able to save $22 billion under former
President Olusegun Obasanjo, which saved the country in 2008, from
global economic meltdown.
“We tried it in Nigeria, we put in an oil price based fiscal rule in
2004 and it worked very well. We saved $22 billion because the political
will to do it was there. And when the 2008 /2009 crisis came, we were
able to draw on those savings precisely to issue about a 5 per cent of
GDP fiscal stimulus to the economy and we never had to come to the bank
or the fund. This time around and this is the key now, you need not only
to have the instrument but you also need the political will. In my
second time as a finance minister, from 2011 to 2015, we had the
instrument, we had the means, we had done it before, but zero political
will. So we were not able to save when we should have. That is why you
find that Nigeria is now in the situation it is in. Along with so many
other countries.” she said
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