CBN, NGE seek support to revive Nigeria’s economy

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has again, sought the intervention of media practitioners in the country to support the diversification plans geared towards improving the economy.

Explaining the apex bank’s role in managing economic recession at the just concluded biennial convention of Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) in Lagos, spokesman of the bank, Isaac Okoroafor, said the impact of economic crisis was so much on the citizens because of its structural issues.

“We are in recession because of our collective failure to diversify our economy,” he said.Meanwhile, NGE has reechoed CBN’s calls on Nigerians to support the its activities to diversify the economy, just as it commended the efforts of the bank towards resuscitating the nation’s ailing economy.

The also commended CBN for its intervention in the forex market, which it noted not only moderated the exchange rate, but also halted the rising inflation in the country.

Okorafor said the collective failure has put the country in a very dangerous position, as it now depends on foreign sources for incomes and at the same time source foreign items to spend the incomes on.

According to him, no economy can grow like that and no nation can be developed along that part. Monetary policies stabilize the prices while fiscal policies are creative policies, which power the economy into production.

“As a severe crush on foreign exchange, we listed 41 items that could be produced in the country, yet we spend lots of foreign exchange in importing them. We tried to introduce the interbank foreign exchange market.

We did some intelligence in the black market to find out how the black market was getting its powers and how we could influence the power and divert activities to the interbank market.

“We discovered that what were powering the black market were bubbles created by currency speculators, and a revelation of stolen funds- people burying money in graves and apartments. That is the kind of complex situation we have been trying to contend with”, he said.He enjoined editors to join the bank on the fight to preserve the economy.

The editors, in a seven-point communique signed by the re-elected President, Funke Egbemode and the Secretary General, Victoria Ibanga, also expressed their support for the CBN’s leading role in advancing the patronage for the Made-in-Nigeria goods; an action they noted had seen the Federal Government’s economic diversification efforts yielding positive results.

The guild therefore, urged all Nigerians to support the government in its bid to bring the country out of the economic recession, which they recognised had affected all sectors of the economy including the media industry.