BUHARI RETURNS TO FIGHT NEW BATTLES FOR NIGERIA’S FUTURE

to extreme lengths to export ill gotten gains. The suspects were caught ingesting $156,000 in sealed wads of cash, en route to the airport to catch a flight to Brazil.

“The point is this: that we need to begin to do things the correct and proper way. We need to rewire our heads, our focus and do what is right and not for us to think that we can always do things illegally,” says Mr Emefiele. “The economy has slowed down not because of what we are doing but because the world economy is going through its own challenges and this is our own share of it.”

Speaking to the Financial Times, the vice-president said that the exchange controls were not an “economic strategy” but a short term measure to stabilise the currency. Longer term, he said, the government is working on a vast infrastructure investment program to stimulate the economy and create jobs. The aim is to deploy Nigeria’s nascent $1.5bn sovereign wealth fund to draw in private and multilateral capital.

But the broader focus will be on lifting people out of poverty, rather than on mollifying the business elite and skittish foreign portfolio investors, senior officials suggest. Underlying this is the beginning of a shift in ideology — from the unbridled crony capitalism that has often accompanied neoliberal policies in Nigeria to a more state-driven vision for promoting industry and jobs.

Mr Buhari’s ability to engineer such a transformation is nevertheless likely to remain constrained by the oil price, and even close allies concede that time is ticking on his four-year term.