Atiku, Tinubu prescribe path to nation’s economic development

Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar has advocated strategic growth through investment in infrastructure as a potent way to revamp the Nigeria’s economy crisis.

Besides, Abubakar who spoke at the ninth Investiture of the President of Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers (CIS), Oluwaseyi Abe in Lagos proposed an adoption of revenue from taxes to make government more accountable.

Abubakar, who lamented the negative impacts of Nigeria’s overdependence on revenue from crude oil noted that there must be a paradigm shift in the management of our resources in order to ensure consistent growth.He specifically advocated the need for the government to de-emphasise borrowing by leveraging on effective and efficient management of revenue from taxation.

“We can’t just borrow our way out of our oil addition. Our governments must live on taxes, the way other democracies do”. “It will help us live within our means. Government can only spend what the people can bear.  It will help ensure accountability as tax payers are more likely to ask for accountability when the money comes directly from their pockets,” he said.

According to him, for Nigeria to grow in a sustainable manner and create jobs, there was need to restructure government financing and the overall economic model.He explained that the total amount of capital brought into Nigeria was less than $1.4 billion in the first half of 2016 compared to $5.3 billion in the first half of 2015.
 
He added that direct investment has also fallen by half, while portfolio investment is down by 87 per cent.“Our capital and financial accounts are deep in the red. A number of long established foreign businesses announced they were planning to leave and many of those that decided to stay are cutting costs and trimming their payrolls to balance their books. Some respected Nigerian companies are folding up as well.

“The state of the economy has called for a radical reform that would ensure public fund deployed into massive infrastructure development, creating jobs and good healthcare delivery for the people.Atiku explained that the country was in dire need a federal government official who are willing to step back and carefully work out how they can empower the private sector to grow the economy and create jobs.

“With the current situation the country is facing we need to know how to empower the economy and create jobs. We need to radicalise our reforms. We also need to understand that our most valuable resources is ourselves that is why we need to forget the oil money and move on to look inward on how to diversify our economy.”

“And I don’t mean selecting a few companies deemed worthy of government support. No, we need radical reforms that streamline our bureaucracy and eliminate rules and regulations that stifle innovation.“ We also need robust management processes that ensure that public money buys us better infrastructure, education outcomes and healthcare. The main reason we are suffering is that government has not really embraced diversification.

“Diversification has become a must for us and has huge implications if not done. Investors have noticed our predicament. Government must look for sustainable sources of revenue. We should get over our addiction to oil and invest in human capacity development.Presenting a paper titled’ Nigeria’s economy: a Growth the only imperative’, Atiku said:” We believe that we are doomed unless oil flows and we have convinced ourselves wrongly that the only reason for survival is through oil money.

He noted that over dependence on oil revenue has led the successive government to lose touch in other areas of wealth creation.He added that government must create enabling environment that would empower the private sector and boost diversification.Corroborating him, the former Lagos State Governor, Ashiwaju Ahmed Tinubu advocated investment in infrastructure to reduce the level of poverty.

He added: “ if we create an enabling environment, foreign investors would come.  Tinubu explained that Nigeria has human and material resources to emerge as a major economic power, hence, there must be a deliberate policy that creates an enabling environment for businesses to thrive.”

In his acceptance speech, Abe assured that the new leadership of the Institute had developed some strategic initiatives to place the capital market on a stronger footing of which education and communication would play a major role.Abe stated that rebranding of Stockbroking profession; aggressive membership drive and advocacy of development policy issues among others would be on the front burner during his tenure.