The Vice President-elect, Prof. Yomi Osinbajo, on
Wednesday said Nigeria’s economy is in its worst
shape in history.
He put the nation’s local and international debt
profile at US$60billion with a 2015 debt serving bill
of N953.6billion, representing 21 per cent of the 2015
budget.
Osinbajo gave these statistics in his remarks at the
opening of a 2-day Policy Dialogue on the
Implementation of the Agenda for Change, which
began in Abuja on Wednesday.
He noted that an estimated 110 million, out of the
nation’s over 170 million population, live in extreme
poverty while the largest chunk of the benefits of our
national wealth accrues to a small percentage of the
population.
According to him, the nation’s dwindling oil
revenues has made it difficult for two thirds of
Nigeria’s 36 states to pay salaries.
He said, “We are concerned that our economy is
currently in, perhaps, its worst moment in history.
Local and international debts stand at US$ 60 billion.
“Our debt servicing bill for 2015 is N953.6 billion, 21
per cent of our budget. On account of severely
dwindled resources, over two-thirds of the states in
Nigeria owe salaries.
“Federal institutions are not in much better shape.
Today, the nation borrows to fund recurrent
expenditure.”
This, he explained, is against the backdrop of a
highly unequal society in which, by some reckoning,
the largest percentage of the benefits of our national
wealth accrues to a small group within our
population.
Osinbajo said the manifesto of the All Progressives
Congress offers a vision of shared prosperity and
soci0-economic inclusion for all Nigerians that
leaves no one behind in the pursuit of a prosperous
and fulfilling life.
According to him, the goal of the policy dialogue is
to interrogate the positions and propositions before
a wider audience and to lunch a robust public
conversation on policy directions and priorities that
will help inform the incoming administration’s
approach in the next four years.
He further explained that the forum exemplifies the
sort of consultative and consensual approach to
policy-making that the APC and the new
administration intend to model in office.
The Vice President elect also declared that sessions
during the dialogue would explore a wide range of
policy priorities including the diversification of the
economy in the wake of dwindling oil revenues.
In order to achieve this, he said, the administration
intends to engender job-led growth through the
revitalisation of agriculture in pursuit of job creation
and food security, improving the regulatory
frameworks in the most strategic sphere of economic
activity.
Earlier, a former Secretary of State for Trade and
Industry, Mr. Peter Mandelson, who represented
former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, advised the
incoming administration, to take advantage of its
current level of public support to take hard
decisions.
He explained that with the current state of affairs,
the task ahead of the incoming administration was
indeed a daunting one.
Drawing from the experiences of the Labour Party in
Britain, Mr. Peter Mandelson said, the first rule of
governance is “Be true to your word; be true to your
mandate.”
He urged the Buhari-led administration not to be
afraid to take hard decisions but that it must remain
mindful of the timing of such decisions.
Mandelson also advised the administration not to
attempt to do everything at once but ensure that
things are done with proper planning along with a
commitment to delivery.
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