A retired investment banker, Victor Ogiemwonyi, has said that the ongoing economic hardship in Nigeria occasioned by reforms being implemented by the President Bola Tinubu's administration will begin to ease within the next two years.
Speaking on Arise Television’s Morning Show programme on Monday, Ogiemwonyi said the current reforms were long overdue and their delay had worsened the consequences.
He noted that the removal of fuel subsidy and the unification of the exchange rate were major policy decisions that should have been taken years ago.
He said: "Let me point out that the current reforms are reforms that should have taken place several years ago.
"When you delay a decision, the consequences are going to be different, and that's one of the things that we are seeing.
"If you remember that this same issue of subsidy removal came up in 2014 but unfortunately, the government at that time, they don't have all, I would say, the strength to take the right decision and damn the consequences and explain to the people what needs to be done, deceiving the people that the naira was N400, when you and I can take $1 go and change it for N700 doesn't make any sense.
"Those are the two major economic reforms that are taking place, and everything else is based on that."
Ogiemwonyi stressed that although Nigerians are currently bearing the brunt of the policies, the economy is already showing signs of recovery.
"Now let me also tell you that I have not praised government. I'm always saying that from the results that we are seeing, things are moving in the right direction, inflation is trending down from 30% to 22%.
"Even in the US, it took Biden over three years to be able to bring inflation down. So it's not as easy as we are looking at it," he said.
On foreign exchange, he noted: "Secondly, take the issue of the forex stability. We now have the stability of the of the naira rate. Meanwhile, don't forget that for over 15 years, we were propping up the naira with reserves that we should have put in our reserves to support the naira.
"The reason for having reserves is not to use it to make payments, it is to give confidence to those we are trading with, to say they are strong enough.
"So if you have a 40 billion naira, a $40 billion reserve, for instance, you can get one 150 billion from all your trading partners who are looking at the kind of reserve you have. So if we have placed those monies into our reserve, would have been in a much better place."
He added that stronger reserves and productivity are key to sustaining the naira.
According to him, "Look at all the countries in the world that have strong currencies. They have huge reserves.
"Even Singapore won't disclose to you, but everybody knows that they have a huge reserve. So many other countries you look at that is the basis of supporting a currency.
"And then, of course, you have to look at productivity. We have absolutely no good productivity in Nigeria. We all know it."
Responding to criticisms that he supports government policies and the IMF, Ogiemwonyi said: "Now, let me point out that everybody will say, I always have this argument with my friends.
"You always support the IMF. You are supporting government. No, I support sensible economics. What we are seeing is finally somebody has said, look, let's stop this, call this nonsense and face the reality.
"Nigerians are going to suffer for a little while more, but I can tell you that my estimation, in about two years, we are going to start seeing things turning for the better.
"We are already seeing signs in our balance of payments. We are seeing signs in governing revenues going up.
“These are all things that should have been done in the past. You can't use two years to make decisions like that."
