Former Governor of Anambra State,
Mr. Peter Obi has identified three things that the Federal Government must
vigorously pursue if Nigeria must get out of economic recession.
Obi was a guest speaker at the 1st Annual Conference of the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers (GOCOP) held on Thursday at Renaissance Hotel, Ikeja in Lagos.
Speaking on the theme “Sustaining
growth through diversification of the economy”, he contended that Nigerian
economy was already diversified.
Buttressing this, the former
Governor said the non-oil sector is contributing about 80% to the nation’s GDP,
noting that the tragedy was that “the oil sector however accounts for 90% of
our foreign exchange earnings.”
He listed three ways to put the
economy back on the path of growth.
According to him, government must
as a matter of urgency embark on aggressive savings, diversification of the
economy towards manufacturing and lastly investment in developmental education.
“Our economy is fully diversified
because the non-oil sector is actually contributing about 80 per cent to our
GDP today.
“But the tragedy of our economy
is that 90 per cent of our export revenue is derived from just one sector –
oil.
“Diversifying our economy through
manufacturing and investment in education is what we require today to turn
around our economy.
“And by aggressive savings we’ll
be able to get the resources to bring about micro economic stability to the
country, defend our currency and be able to attract FDI and portfolio
investments and unlock the resources to invest in our deteriorated
infrastructure,” Obi, who described himself as a trader and businessman said.
Another Guest Speaker and
Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, Mr Bayo Onanuga, charged
GOCOP to come up with code of conduct for online media practitioners.
He also charged the leadership of
the Guild to pursue capacity building for members through workshops and
seminars to broaden their knowledge.
The NAN MD assured that his
organisation would collaborate with GOCOP in generating contents, not only text
but videos and photographs.
On his part, the keynote speaker,
Prof Akinyemi Onigbinde, posited that we need to restructure the polity before
talking about diversification of the economy.
“Let me say this, and it is with
all sense of responsibility, that the proponents of this ‘diversification’
theory, with respect to the chronically ill Nigeria economy, are not being
honest.
“Indeed, I dare say they are
being mischievous, just as they insist on playing Nero as our Rome prepares to
go up in flames. Truth is, for Nigeria, it may well be one-minute to midnight,
if we continue to ignore the ‘first principle’ in nation-building.
“So, what is responsible for
Nigeria’s arrested development, to put it in a counter thesis to GOCOP request:
Nigeria economy cannot enjoy a sustainable growth and neither can it be
diversified because there is even no basis for economic growth.
“As I had earlier suggested, what
economy are we to diversify? And As I had also insisted on, there can be no
economy to be diversified, hence there will be no growth as to speak of
‘sustainable growth.’
“But let us, however, say that
Nigeria will continue to remain in a state of suspended animation,
economically, so long as some sections of the Nigerian nation space feel
short-changed by the Nigeria political economy, due, largely, to the operations
of present structure of the Nigerian state.
“Truth is, so long as the centre
holds a ‘veto power’ over the economic activities of Nigeria so-called
federating units, so long will Nigeria manifest destiny remain dormant,” Prof
Onigbinde said.
Representatives of GOCOP key
partners like FRSC, Mobil, NLNG, EFCC delivered goodwill messages calling for
sustained relationship while the GOC 81 Division of the Nigerian Army, Major
General PJ Dauke, presented paper on counter-insurgency.
At the end of the one-day
conference, the newly elected Executive Committee of GOCOP was inaugurated
under the leadership of Mr Dotun Oladipo, Publisher, The Eagle Online.
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Wow!!! Here Peter Obi---"Our economy is fully diversified because the non-oil sector is actually contributing about 80 per cent to our GDP today."...God bless Buhari..we will get there
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