Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo has advocated the need for all critical stakeholders in the economy to join hands with the government in tackling the rising inflation in Nigeria.
Osinbajo said this on Monday at the opening ceremony of the 28th Nigerian Economic Summit(NES#28) in Abuja, where he also emphasized the need for increased domestic production of food to stem the inflation.
He noted that high food inflation has been one of the major triggers of inflation in the country, adding that government and private sector need to pay more attention to the provision of infrastructure.
He stated that the Ukraine-Russia war has impacted negatively on the prices of food items in Nigeria and other countries, adding that government through the introduction of fiscal and monetary policies is working assidiously to stabilise the economy.
Speaking, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, said President Muhammadu Buhari led administration has recorded achievements in the areas of transformational investments in infrastructure to restore national road networks projects, which she said will be complemented by investments in light rail, narrow and standard gauge rail.
According to her,the airport terminals have been completed in Lagos and Abuja, adding that the reconstruction of the Abuja Airport has commenced.
She said work is also ongoing on the development of seaports and auxiliary infrastructure to the ports or airports, to ensure efficiency in the transportation sector.
She added that efforts are also being made to translate from reliance on oil derivatives to gas as a transition fuel, as government also increases the renewable sources such as solar and hydro in the energy mix.
Speaking on the reforms in the agricultural sector, she said the net earnings of rural farmers has been increased to N174 billion in the areas of cassava, rice, sorghum maize as well as cotton production.
She said: “Other investments in airports include the safety facilities and aeronautical meteorological service delivery. Work is also ongoing in the development of seaports and ancillary infrastructure.
“Our efforts to ensure efficiency in the Power Sector led to the partnership with the German government under the Presidential Power Initiative (PPI), government intervention in four distressed electricity distribution companies and the constitution of the Board of the Nigeria Electricity Liability Management Company. Under the Energy Transition Plan, efforts are also being made to transit from our reliance on oil derivatives to gas as a transitional fuel, as we also increase renewable sources such as solar and hydro in our energy mix.
“We are focused on unlocking the economic potential of the non-oil and high employment generating sectors to achieve sustainable and inclusive growth and development. Reforms in Agriculture are yielding results, leading to an improvement in net earnings of rural farmers to the sum of N174 billion in the areas of Cassava, Rice, Sorghum, Maize and Cotton production.”
Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Agba,
revealed that the Federal Government is in the process of finalising the Nigeria Agenda 2050.
He reiterated that the vision and determination of the present administration to “change the development trajectory of our dear country has not waned.”
He added: “As we keep aspiring to attain the desired objective for Nigeria’s development, we built on the gains of the ERGP and successfully delivered the National Development Plan, 2021-2025. We are currently in the process of finalizing the Nigeria Agenda 2050.
“Broadly, all past Plans had the overarching goals of economic diversification, employment generation, infrastructure development, and poverty reduction.
“In addition to these, the NDP 2021 – 2025 has a unique objective of establishing a strong foundation for a concentric economic diversification, implying that the economy had already been diversified but the focus of the Plan is to deepen the diversification effort within the sectors such that each sector could substantially increase its contribution to GDP and create more jobs.The overall vision of the Plan, is to make Nigeria a country that has unlocked its potentials in all sectors of the economy for a sustainable, holistic and inclusive development.
“The Plan is designed to lift 35 million people out of poverty and generate 21 million full time jobs by 2025, thus setting the stage for achieving government’s target of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years.The Plan is also unique in many respects: The process for its preparation was not only participatory and consultative, but inclusive and benefited from the lessons learnt from the implementation of previous Plans.”
In his remarks,Mr. Asue Ighodalo, Chairman, Board of Directors of Nigerian Economic Summit Group(NESG),tasked critical stakeholders to “work harder than ever
before, think differently and then, we must agree on creative and practical recommendations which if implemented, will initiate our national revival and pull us out of these difficulties.”
Ighodalo pointed out that the incoming
government in 2023 must be proactive and creative with a view to moving the country forward.
“We must do everything within our power to ensure that the new government lands
running, quickly identifying, determining and implementing economic and social policies that will set us firmly on the path
of inclusive, shared and sustainable prosperity,” he said.
In order to realise the goal of prosperity, he said: “we must succeed in transforming the Nigerian economy into the complete
opposite of what it is today, i.e. from hardship to true prosperity, within a specified time frame.
“The Nigeria Agenda 2050, currently being drafted, proposes a time frame of about
25 years. It means there can be no further regression, we can no longer accept just marginal improvement, or even what
some may deem a decent improvement,
“We must improve at the speed of a maglev train. We must recalibrate our visioning and specifically state that we are working towards a specified target growth, by a specified date, benchmarking ourselves with the most prosperous countries in the world. I propose that, our specified target must be; “turning Nigeria into the most prosperous black country in the world, with a GDP per capita that is at par with the OECD countries, by 2050”.