Reading through the latest tirade of Tope Fasua which he entitled ‘Only God will forgive Osinbajo for these seven cardinal sins,” one could easily decipher that he wrote from a place of bilious rage, unbridled anger and most essentially, demonstrated inane knowledge typical of an uppity intellectual who thinks he knows everything under the sun.
No doubt, one understands the context in which Mr Fasua wrote the piece given that he has just found a new hustle, which he is entitled, though as far as democracy is concerned, aside from his pretentious claim to be an economist who has a panoramic understanding of all economic matters, including the arcane and the recondite. This article will soon unravel the shallowness of his thoughts regarding the latest matter under review.
Of course, Fasua’s latest charade of an article against the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, is typical of the recent ones authored by Farooq Kperogi, a Nigerian professor who teaches in one of the third tier universities in the United States of America. The duo’s articles against the VP have been high on fury, innuendos, half-truths, exaggerations but tragically short in factuality and actuality.
Much as they continue to trade these falsehoods against the VP to soil his presidential aspiration, discerning Nigerians have equally taken it upon themselves to continue to deflate the pack of lies and expose them for what they are: satanic pieces of propaganda that can’t fly in the face of truth and empirical evidence.
That said, of the seven sins listed against the VP by Fasua, which I have dubbed ‘seven satanic verses’, only two or three of the ‘sins’ have anything to do with the management of the nation’s economy, the rest are mere hot airs probably obtained from some downtown decrepit beer parlours that cannot withstand critical scrutiny without falling apart.
Even the three sins that have any tangential relationship with the economy, I am sorry, also fall short of the standard expected of a self-acclaimed economist and public intellectual. The three sins or so could only have been labelled so by a motor park, half-baked economist who does not know the nitty-gritty of economic management and the responsibilities of the individuals in charge. Well, in the spirit of being charitable, one could say he is a neanderthal economist, just like his latest principal who is marooned in the past.
With his typically long winding, unnecessarily lengthy essays which often give a hiding to the crux of his obtuse and convoluted thoughts, it’s always problematic replying Fasua in a logical and coherent way for it’s always difficult to build a logical premise from his cacophony of illogicalities. Nevertheless, for the sake of this particular one which he knowingly used to cast aspersions on the person of the VP, I will summarize the rejoinder on four themes, while heeding little or no attention to the rest because they are just a tissue of lies unbecoming of a public intellectual.
Per his misleading and uninformed position on the devaluation of the Naira, which he blamed on the VP, even a 100-level student of Economics knows that the matters of exchange rate issues fall squarely within the province of the CBN Governor in law and in fact. That is, anything that has to do with monetary policies are the exclusive preserve of the Governor who is practically a government on his own. Other stakeholders can only offer opinion and perspectives which may be of help to the CBN and its Monetary Policy Committee. Pray, tell, when did the VP become a member of the MPC that he would impose on the CBN devaluation of the naira?
To ascribe the devaluations to the VP is wicked and lazy thinking. All the VP has called for was a more transparent means of ascertaining the value of the naira rather than the current arbitrary method that promotes arbitrage and reduces confidence in the value of the currency, especially with the different and confounding exchange rates which have impacted negatively on the intrinsic value of the naira, which is its purchasing power. If Fasua is so hot with his rudimentary knowledge of economics, one expects that he should have told Nigerians what means he would use to keep the value of the naira stable and restore confidence to the currency rather than punch beyond his weight.
As for his position on cryptocurrency, Mr Fasua, again, betrayed his severe logical limitations and extremely anemic knowledge of the subject matter. One pertinent question is: Can he say in all his ignorant rantings that he understands the world of cryptocurrencies which the most serious Central Banks of developed countries and and first grade economic researchers are struggling to come to grips with?
Of a truth, the outright ban on crypto currency trading in the country has merely driven the activity underground thus making it more difficult to track the flow of funds and better regulate the market. Indeed the initial instinct of the Securities and Exchange Commission before being bullied on the matter was to make rules for regulation, so that those trading in it could be properly monitored, regulated and sanctioned accordingly, where there are infractions. But no, Mr Fasua with his half knowledge is able to make unfounded pronouncements on such a serious matter which serious countries are struggling to come to terms with.
For a very long time, different administrations had devised means to bring more Nigerians, especially in the rural and hard-to-reach areas in the banking net but the efforts proved futile because there was no relevant technology to make that happen. But today, with the ubiquitous presence of fintechs, banking is a lot easier for the people which has, in a significant way, amplified the cashless policy of the government. It therefore beggars belief that Fasua could insult the technology sector, Fintechs and the resilient young people who are working so hard to build such unicorns in the manner he has done. It really shows how degenerative and backward his thoughts are. Does he think that bringing financial services to the unbanked is a bad thing? Anyway, that was how he created unnecessary conspiracies against COVID-19 even when all top tier scientific revelations confirmed the presence of the virus and what could be done to tame it. Anyway, encouraging young Nigerians to keep up the pace with technology is the right way to go instead of conscription into the army to feed them with eba in the morning.
Also, Fasua’s stinking ignorance and illiteracy stuck out when he wrote about the ease of doing business in his latest jabberwocky. First of all, this is a major concern for the Nigerian private sector and the use of the World Bank EoDB was to try to find a neutral way of measuring progress. Does the half-educated Fasua know that countries like China and India which have made serious development strides in the recent past also used the WB EoDB to measure their progress in this area? There are several other testaments that speak to the ease of doing business in the country at the national and sub-national levels by those who are really involved in the business sector, unlike Fasua who plays on the fringe and purports to have an alpha knowledge on every matter when he has barely managed a portfolio worth N1 billion.
While it is essential to save the readers from going through the other inanities the writer spun to give the dog a bad name, it has to be stated that he goofed when he questioned the reason behind FG’s COVID-19 relief fund to some small and medium scale business enterprises. But for the timely interventions, most of the beneficiaries would have gone under now and no one can tell what disastrous multiplier effects it would have had.
For Fasua and those in his cocooned conclave, it’s a waste of money on the part of the government to save the vulnerable. That is the height of wickedness by the privileged few against the commoners which the FG is totally against. Again I ask: How is the intervention a waste? How is saving Nigerians from going into the abyss through a financial stimulus package a waste? Even the United States of America designed a COVID-19 relief package for the vulnerable Americans to ease the burden occasioned by the pandemic. It is on records that Mr Tope Fasua actually campaigned against the Covid vaccine, but he surreptitiously went to Dubai to take the vaccine at a time when Nigeria had not imported it. Hypocrisy!
His hypocrisy runs through his misunderstanding of the impacts of tradermoni and marketmoni. If he is brave enough, let him go to the rural areas where the majority of beneficiaries are to say anything evil against the interventions; I can’t accurately tell what will come of it. So much for a motor park economist!l
•Written By mustapha okoyawo
