By Goodluck B Ikiebe
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been urged to initiate a radical restructure of Nigeria’s foreign exchange policy to prevent stockpile of dollars and pounds by minority few in the society.
The Chairman of SOWENON group, a non governmental organisation, Dr Sam Olufemi Jenfa, made the call in a reaction to the continued fall of the Naira against the major foreign currencies, which has led to skyrocketing price increase of goods and services in Nigeria.
“The state of Nigeria’s economy to be modest has collapsed beyond imagination and this is obvious to blind and person without going into the theoretical analysis to justify this situation”.
Dr Sam Jenfa called on the Ministers, Economists, Professionals from various sectors, to as a matter of urgency rally support for the President in the task of restoring the economy through performance monitoring and social cohesion approach.
“The current position of the economy can be observed through numbers of people dying because of hunger while the rate of people making money through ritual and other merciless criminal activities including kidnapping that have never been experienced in Nigeria is alarming”.
According to him, “There is a need for practical step beyond the theoretical approach to be urgently taking by the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, for a complete restoration just as the whole world is witnessing similar step the British Prime Minister together with his cabinet, is taking to reverse the economy recession that was contracted to 0.3 % as of 15th February 2024.
“There is never a nation existing that is without a difficult period. USA went through a difficult period of 1861 to 1865 as a result of Civil War but they survived it through the reconstruction era of 1865 to 1877. Great Britain has been through a period of ups and downs since the birth of the single union on 1st May 1707 and one of the dark ages to recall was the event of economic depression, poor harvest and high level of inflation of 1815 to 1822 but the Union continued to build the economy of the nation by employing sustained measures that override the factors challenging the living condition of the people.
Dr Jenfa explained that, “Nigeria has been going through its own legacy of economic disasters beyond humanistic apologies in all sectors of the economy from the socio – economic discourse, industrial context to security perspective. However, we cannot allow the errors, selfishness and injustice that turned our beautiful nation into darkness to continue to revolve from one administration to other (since 1999). I strongly believe that we can fix the ongoing legacy of economic deficit across the sectors of Nigeria’s economy through realistic measures and self determination of the fellow Nigerians to be creative in seeking for a credible source of making income as opposed to relying only on the government to resolve the future.
” I must commend the heroic effort of President Tinubu for apprehending the looters and daylight robbers across government departments through the EFCC. There are over one thousand of the other people well known to the government and Nigerians as a whole, from various aspects of our country that needs to surrender the billions of monies (irrespective of currencies) and assets they had looted, back to our treasury. The monumental lootings (in monetary values and wealth of the nation) from the treasury through the proceed of the crude oil alone can sustain Nigeria’s economy without borrowing”, Dr Jenfa added.
He urged the Federal Government to tackle the proceeds from the crude oil in a way where its 90% contribution to our nation’s foreign exchange earnings (from 1.8 million barrels daily production through 18 operating pipelines), can be of significant benefit to the citizens of Nigeria as opposed to few people monopolising the wealth of the nation.
“Mr President, for the best interest of our nation and knowing your performance driven capability from your track record, allow me to appeal to you to adhere to the outcry of the fellow citizens over this moment of unguided economic peril by using your executive order to restructure our economy to an extent where our reliant on importation can be reduced.
Furthermore, let’s bring smile to the citizens at their local level through the review of the allocation of funds to the local government with tight monitoring procedure together with the involvement of the people in the community to ensure that the needs of the local people are met.
As we are facing imaginary social and economic challenges, I strongly believe that the principle of community cohesion and regeneration budgets with significant investment on infrastructures to level up the rural areas, towns and declined cities will by no doubt grow our economy with focus on – transforming the local resources to generate production and revenue, creation of job and business opportunities, sustainable environment through transportation with connectivity, support with the construction of affordable housing, free local medical care, etc.
I would urge Senator Abubakar Kyari (the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security) and Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi (the State Minister of Agriculture and Food Security) to promote the internal self-reliant of food security through agriculture that used to be the mainstay of economy before the oil boom. In 1960 -69 precisely, this sector accounted for an average of 57% of GDP with corresponding 64.5% of export earnings generation from cash crops ranging from Cocoa, Timber, Rubber, Groundnut, Palm oil and palm kernel. We can turn the tiding around again by providing farmers with cash incentive to make use of blessed land and water that we have across all regions of Nigeria for farming to ensure food security, livestock and fisheries and creation of employment opportunities.
Many people have abandoned their farmland due to kidnapping and endless killing of people. The investors (local and foreign) are afraid of moving around the country because of killing and kidnapping, to this end, I would like to call on President Tinubu, the Commander in Chief of Armed Forces of Nigeria, to restore safety, security, and peace to the nation through the superior fire power of the Military and other security agencies.
