The Presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has revealed why he would Plunge Nigeria’s economy into inflation.
According to him, he would be willing to risk plunging Nigeria’s economy into inflation in order to guarantee inflow of foreign investments.
Atiku Abubakar
Mr Abubakar, a former vice president, said he would float the naira, so as to allow free market determine the value of the national currency, a controversial position that stands in sharp contrast to the belief of President Muhammadu Buhari.
“I would prefer to float the naira because I believe that will bring about a more stable exchange rate,” Mr Abubakar told The Africa Report in recent interview. “Therefore, foreign investors are more likely to return to Nigeria and invest as much as possible.”
“We have to create more incentives for foreign investment and relax conditionalities, remove regulations as much as possible. But what you forget, it has two side effects,” he said.
When challenged that the policy could worsen Nigeria’s inflation rate, which stood at 11.3 percent in September after averaging 16.5 percent in 2017, Mr Abubakar said the foreign currency that potential investors would pump into Nigeria would be enough to cushion the imminent crisis of inflation on Nigerians.
“There could be devaluation and there could be a lot of inflow of foreign currency into the country. The devaluation that is likely to result can be balanced with the relatively huge [sums of] foreign currency that will be coming into the country. We had that situation prior to the departure of [former president] Goodluck Jonathan.
“At that time, we had a pile of foreign investment in the country, and there was stability of the naira. So people did not have to go to the central bank to look for foreign exchange because there was foreign exchange in the market and in the banks. So it could turn out to be a win-win situation,” he said.
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