That’s the problem with gravity. And economics. No matter where in the world you are, its principles hold true for you. Your country is not ‘exceptional’. There is no ‘homegrown solution’ to be found, no box to think out of. Sometimes, there is only one option.

President Buhari has spent nearly all of his first year talking about how he is ‘unconvinced’ by the arguments for devaluation. Now, he has clearly been convinced by reality. Some wondered how long he would be able to hold out, how long before it became clear to him what has been clear to anyone observing Nigeria’s economy for the last 18 months: A major devaluation was inevitable.

In the end, what did it was the inability to import petrol for the entire nation. With foreign exchange earnings sharply down, and petrol marketers unable to get access to foreign exchange to import the product, the country has been moving from one round of petrol scarcity to another for much of 2016.

The NNPC could not meet up with demand, and it became clear that until the price of petrol was close enough to market realities, the scarcity would not end. On the evening of Monday May 9^th, it was announced that petrol would officially cost between N135 to N145 a liter, a figure around which most of the country was getting it anyway.

That price band was based on an exchange rate of N280 to the dollar and almost immediately, there began to be speculation that the official price of the Naira would change to reflect this. In a series of tweets, the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, who is in charge of economic matters, dropped a very strong hint.

We expect that foreign exchange will be sourced at an average of about N285 to the dollar, (current interbank rate).

— Prof Yemi Osinbajo (@ProfOsinbajo) May 13, 2016

The current interbank rate is about N199. So he clearly knows something we don’t know. In addition, there is a meeting of the CBN’s monetary policy committee next week, where decisions about all sorts of rates are made. That should be fun.J

What is not fun though, is how long it has taken us to get to this point; to get to a point where we actually begin to obey the laws of economics. In the meantime, the economy has sustained needless damage. Foreign direct investment has slowed to a trickle, capital importation has basically stopped, and inflation is still going up, even though the refusal to devalue was supposed to do exactly that –  stop inflation. J .

This is all because of policies that were non-starters from the beginning, and there were quite a few who said so. In fact, some vocal professionals on Twitter put articles on a leading online news website for a whole week, trying to convince this administration to move away from its public position on monetary policy, all to no avail. It got to a point that those in favour of devaluation were called ‘agents of the IMF’ by some people. Well, not even the IMF can rewrite the laws of global economics.

On several occasions, the President went on record as saying that devaluation would not be entertained, forcing his ministers to support his position. If indeed the CBN officially devalues next week, as is being reported, the question would then become: “Who all dat arrogance don epp?” The answer: NO ONE. Nobody.

Not even the famous poor people Buhari claims to want to protect. Why? Just like his first shot at being Head of State, his restrictive forex policy caused prices to go even higher, causing inflation to rise, and back then, just like now, it put those same people under greater strain.

It is important to stress here that devaluation/floating the Naira or deregulating the downstream petroleum sector by itself is not a magic bullet. Those are just the first steps for a government that is serious about economic growth.

There is so much more work to do, like improving power supply, security, fighting corruption, improving infrastructure and the ease of doing business, and enacting certain important laws that can unlock the value in assets held by Nigerians, who are working hard night and day. All these, taken together, can set the country on a path that will guarantee strong growth going forward.

In time, we may yet look back on the week of May 9^th to 13^th, 2016, as the point when the most damaging economic positions of this administration were dispensed with, and things began to change. Or not. We continue to observe.