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“Not all storms come to disrupt your life, some come to clear your path” – Paulo Coelho

I wish I could tell you that the essence of this piece is not to create fear in you but since fear means different things to different people, I would rather say “Choose your own fear”

For some people, fear means Forget Everything And Run while for some it simply means Face Everything And Rise. for the purposes of what I intend to achieve with this write up, I will advise that you choose the latter definition of FEAR.

Let me begin by asking you an important question ” Do you think this storm has come to disrupt our lives or to clear our paths”? Before you jump into giving me an answer as a child of God, who walks by faith and not by sight, permit me to guide you for a few minutes through the following facts but I must warn you that no matter what happens in the course of this tour, “Never allow the fear of losing by greater than the excitement of winning”

The current pandemic has affected the world in different dimensions, the first is the health crisis which the entire world has succumbed to, the second phase is the Economic crises which is gradually setting in . For instance, during the 2008 economic crises, 6 millions jobs were lost in the US (within 106 weeks). Currently within 3 weeks, Job losses in the United states have hit 10 million already. As at today, there is a very high demand for Guns and other light arms in Hungary as well as other parts of the world as people foresee a sharp rise in crimes, terrorism as well as refugee crises. public and private debts continue to skyrocket as most countries have already hit a debt to GDP ratio of 300% (USA -210%, India – 300%). The collapse of global co-operation continues to deal a great blow to the fight against COVID 19. The G7 and G20 summits ended without a joint statement from the participating nations. Central Banks of nations are not collaborating as much as we witnessed during the 2008 economic crises.

I strongly believe that Nigeria is headed for a recession / depression due to the following reasons.

The current economic war between Saudi Arabia and Russia will continue to affect the price of oil as Russia has refused to cut down production by 1.5m barrels per day as requested by Riyadh to prop us prices. one may be tempted to believe that Nigeria is insulated having reduced our benchmark oil price from $57 – $30 but look at it this way-

If oil continues to sell below $30pb, Nigeria which operates a petroeconomy will be adversely hit compared to countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia. As at today, Saudi’s foreign reserves stands at $500bn with another sovereign wealth fund of about $320bn. it may interest you to know that Saudi has the lowest cost of production in the industry at $2.8-$3pb compared to Nigeria which has a cost of production of $31.6 pb.

Russia on the other hand has a foreign reserve of $551bn as at March 20, 2020 with a national welfare fund of $157bn.

Our dear country Nigeria has a depleting foreign reserve of $36bn as at March 11, 2020 with a high debt profile when compared with debt to revenue ratio.

The president has just approved the withdrawal of $150m from the $250m Sovereign wealth fund stabilization fund to share at this month’s FAAC.

My question is, if the pandemic continues and price of oil continues to decline, for how long will federal and state governments be able to pay salaries?, How many companies in Nigeria will be able to pay salaries ? what will happen to several Jobs? Banks will begin to experience defaults in loan repayments, Businesses will begin to collapse.

The current pandemic may be the opportunity we need to rethink the way we do business and exist as a people – “Every problem is a gift, without it we will not grow”- Anthony Robbins.

It is time to stop trying to calm the storm, calm yourself instead and the storm will pass.

Think. Create. Grow.