Nigeria, a few weeks from now would elect a new set of leaders including the President and members of her Parliament. The government that will take over in 2023 will be confronted with many scary domestic and external challenges, which have degenerated over the years due to leadership failure. Nigerians have seen the government complain every day about revenue crises and low GDP. At the same time, the question on the lips of the people is, how do the government of other countries get theirs right especially liquidity?
It is common but critical knowledge that to get revenue, one must make creative investments. In the first instance. Government has to ensure economic growth and create jobs and employment which, will allow people to pay taxes and taxes will create wealth.
Nigeria with an estimated population of 200 million people, using the world average of people who are supposed to be gainfully employed, it’s 60 percent which, is about 120 million of the people. Unfortunately, it is a fact that the number of people that are gainfully employed and working in Nigeria is about 40m. How can such an economy thrive? Suffice it to say that the country has about 60m to 70m unproductive people. That’s a mass of people.
Ideally, what the country needs now is to start pulling this mass of people out of poverty, and have robust economic growth to have the liquidity that government needs to function. I completely agree with the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi whose mantra has now become, pulling Nigeria from consumption to production.
He said, “China’s last financial budget was about N4trn, out of which N3.2trn came from taxes, 50 percent of that came to MSMEs and this segment is providing 60 percent of the jobs in China. The number of employed people in China is 800 million. The more robust your economy is, the more the country can be liquid.” This is factual and should be the guide for the Nigerian electorate in choosing their leader.
eter Obi, a two-term former governor of Anambra State, a rich South East state in Nigeria’s Igbo states priding as home to more than 50% of all Nigeria’s billionaires, a Vice Presidential candidate, in 2019, of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) but tried and failed to secure the presidential ticket in 2022 party primaries moved to a lowly rated and highly unknown Labor Party to pick their presidential ticket.
This entry gave life and fame to the Labour Party with a massive population of the Youths, Artisans, Workers, and the Downtrodden, who call themselves Obidients have now taken the Nigerian political space by storm and shocked. So shocked that the 6 polls already conducted ahead of the election puts him far ahead of his closest contenders, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressive Congress, APC, and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the PDP.
Plagued with the unthinkable combination of two Muslims on their ballot, the APC is bedeviled with the anger of the large Christian and moderate Muslim population who see the combination as taboo in a country where power and resource sharing are always balanced on ethnic and religious scales. PDP on the other hand has another combination of Muslim Christian tickets but a Fulani- Igbo combination even when the current president is also a Fulani. Many Nigerians across the over 350 ethnic groups consider the attempt by PDP to field another Fulani after the present Mr. Mohammed Buhari, a Fulani as a No No!
The Labour Party Christian Muslim and Igbo Fulani combination, aside from that the pair are younger, urbane, proven entrepreneurs with minimal or no criminal records resonate among the Obidients and the Undecided voters
Mr. Peter Obi and his running mate, Dr. Datti Baba Ahmed, owner of two prestigious private universities in Nigeria have continued to promote their message of home, anti-corruption, and hope across the country.
Another clog in the wheel of Nigeria’s development is the lack of electricity. Listening to Mr. Obi, he agreed with me on the need to liberalize the transmission wing of the power supply system in Nigeria and lend support to the existing power-generating companies. I have, on this page, written extensively on the need for Nigeria to review and overhaul its power transmission infrastructure. The candidate also agreed on the need for the country to provide fund access, tax incentives, and promote renewable energy.
I have read his views on Exchange rates. Nigeria, to overcome its forex crisis, needs to de-dollarize its economy. Russia did it a few months ago and it worked for her. They have the oil and the world has the dollar. If Europe must buy the oil, Putin insisted, they must buy with Russian currency. Doing this saved them from the forex crisis by pulling dollars to them in exchange for their currency. It worked!
Why won’t it work for Nigeria? 5th world producer of crude oil with a 200 million population can pull some punches to save her naira and still have the dollar. Mr. Peter Obi agrees that there would be no more dollar change or dollar expenditure for the government. “If you must operate here, you must change Naira. We will use the dollar to engage other countries but here, only Naira”, he said. I agree.
On security and food shortages, He said, “If you deal with security today and… farmers go back to the farm, food prices will come down; remove subsidy and deal with corruption, and inflation will come down” This is closer to the solution.
The Labour Party (LP) presidential flagbearer, Mr. Peter Obi has said that he would pull unproductive Nigerians out of poverty and ensure economic growth if given the mandate to lead the country come 2023.
In some of his speeches, he has highlighted strongly several ways he would raise funds to fund his lofty agenda for Nigeria. He said he would cut down governance costs as the monies involved were too much, adding that the extra monies used in governance should be used for some other things like establishing factories and financing businesses that would generate money instead of channeling them to drinking champagnes and political patronage
He also said he would do away with the office of the first lady because if voted into power, adding, “It was not my wife that was voted in but himself. The Ministry of Women Affairs was enough to take good care of women.” These and many more decisive actions against corruption and wastage, if he is able, would save sufficient funds to run his productive government.
It is already becoming real that the Labour Party may win the election considering the massive youth population that has pitched their tent with them and audacious endorsement by respectable Nigerians and some global voices including former Nigerian president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and founders of the big Churches in Nigeria.
On the 25th of February, the presidential election will hold and with the constitutional use of advanced technology, including the BVAS Machines deployed across over 140,000 polling booths in the country, the 2023 elections seem as the most crucial Nigerian election with the hope that the winners would bring hope to the most populous black nation on earth.
