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The GDP was barely $58 billion while the GDP growth rate was 0.5% and per capita income was just $450. The country had excruciating external debt of $35 billion while the foreign reserves were less than $3 billion billion.
Upon being sworn into office, the then president Obasanjo put his Vice President Atiku Abubakar firmly in charge of the economy and he set to work by assembling a formidable economic team made up of brilliant Nigerian economists at home and in the diaspora.
They wasted no time in getting to work and setting the economic growth agenda for Nigeria and within one year they were able to move our economy from a stagnant economic growth rate of 0.5% to a respectable 5%. This feat was to be later surpassed in 2002 when they achieved an economic growth rate of 15.3% which remains the highest economic growth rate in the history of Nigeria.
Under Atiku’s leadership as the chairman of the National Economic Council, the administration was also able to build our foreign reserves by the highest margin by any administration even at a time of relatively low oil prices.
With the increased foreign reserves, they were able to leverage on it and negotiate a huge discount on our external debt and pay off the balance thus leaving Nigeria debt free and skyrocketing Nigeria’s credit ratings which paved the way for foreign investments rushing into Nigeria.
This and several other policies carefully implemented with Atiku in charge of the economy led to Nigeria becoming the fastest growing economy in Africa which culminated with Nigeria becoming the biggest economy in Africa when the GDP was rebased in 2013.
As a result of the efforts of the Atiku led economic team, the Nigerian economy was able to grow from a paltry GDP of $58 billion in 1999 to over $300 billion when they left office in 2007 and a whopping $540 billion in 2015 by succeeding PDP administrations. The GDP per capita increased from $450 to $3,000 in this same period.
Their administration also left Nigeria virtually debt free while building our foreign reserves to almost $50 billion.
Today Nigeria is at crossroads again and our economy even worse than it was in 1999 as a result of 10 years of retrogression ushered in by the extreme corruption and incompetence of successive APC administrations and Nigeria is in need of someone who knows the ropes to fix our economy and rescue from this APC induced mess.
Of all the contending opposition candidates, only Atiku Abubakar has demonstrated that he has the passion, the capacity and the experience to fix our economy. We don’t need another person that will be learning on the job and doing ‘try and error’ tactics the way T-pain is currently doing.
We need a tried and tested hand who can hit the road running and only Atiku fits the bill.
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