The last I looked, the federal government has the sole power and sovereign right to issue naira or financial guarantees based thereon. It does not need the approval of the American Federal Reserve, the Bank of England or of the host of global oil buyers.

There is no innate legal or moral restriction strictly limiting the amount of Naira or the value of Naira-denominated guarantees placed in the system to spawn employment to match the amount of dollars collected via oil sales.

Oil is a passive asset in the ground. When cash-strapped yet in need of more revenue presently, a nation should also consider issuing guarantees on the future oil shipments on a price certain paid now; or selling a portion of its equity in the joint ventures.

Some may call this a variant of an oil futures. Whatever it is called, it should be considered particularly as a measure to improve our foreign currency position.

Not to explore more creative approaches is to effectively trap the Naira and thus our fiscal policy in an implicit “dollar standard” at a time when such a custom is harmful and ill-advised because of our diminished dollar intake.

The world jettisoned the gold standard in 1971 because it proved unworkable, reducing the policy space in which governments could pursue fiscal programmes promoting full employment and social welfare. We should likewise reject this implicit dollar standard on our nation’s fiscal operation.

Because we operate a sovereign fiat currency that the federal government issues at its sole discretion, the federal government can never be rendered insolvent in Naira.

The position I espouse sounds heretical and some of you will say it is a recipe for runaway inflation. At this, I say listen very carefully for I am aware of the ravages of excessive inflation. I am also opposed to anything that will bring it about.

The outer boundaries of our fiscal policy should neither be our dollar intake or some unfounded fear of naira insolvency. It actually may be a better trade-off to live with a bit more inflation at this recessionary time. Instead, that boundary should be that we never ever allow fiscal expansion to the extent that it prompts damaging inflation rates. But we can live with and manage a notch of it.

The correct perspective is not to mechanistically restrict Naira expenditure to dollar intake. Continuing this peg is tantamount to donning economic blinders then praying that somehow we avoid the pitfall set before us. It points to deflation, recession and worse.

The second pillar is the need to engage in some level of efficient economic planning in order to position the private sector to thrive.

I commend the Buhari Administration for its economic policy coherence by merging government’s budget and planning operations in one ministry. We hear talk of free trade but the reality is different.