Experts hint on measures to survive present economy in Nigeria

Marufh Bello
Hints on measures to adopt to survive the current economic situation in Nigeria have been given by experts.
The measures were mainly rolled out by Isiaka Olaide Popoola, a Deputy Bursar at the University of Ibadan, during the monthly lecture of Professional Monthly Forum, an Islamic organization based in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.
Popoola, the keynote speaker at the event, stated that financial freedom and opportunities were needed to survive the current economic situation in the country, while pointing out that this could only be achieved through proper personal finance planning, which involves goal setting, budgeting, discipline, saving, spending, monitoring and re-assessment, goal execution and accomplishment.
Popoola, in a paper entitled: “Personal Finance Plans, Opportunities and Financial Freedom in the Nigeria’s Recovering Economy,” said to survive in an economy like Nigeria’s, everybody must maintain self discipline, good time management, proper fund management and utilization, execution discipline, sincere personal assessment of one’s finances, monthly budgeting, tracking of expenditure, creating and development of additional income streams, avoidance of debt accumulation, among others.
He noted that the present economic situation in the country was stagflation, adding that this came to be when there were falling capacity to import, rising cost of borrowing and production, poor and deteriorating infrastructure, low skilled workforce, poor governance, high level of corruption, cost of doing business and illicit financial flows (capital flight).
Adding his voice to the lecture, the Chairman of the event, Alhaji Idris Akanji, the Deputy Bursar of Olabisi Onabanjo University, said the message of the lecture was that it was no longer business as usual in Nigeria, stressing that everybody must adjust how they live, stop following bandwagon and “see what others cannot and do what others do not want to do”.
Akanji submitted that automatic income to sustain oneself, higher income with less spending and keeping low poverty threshold were the practices that would ensure true financial freedom.