Mkpoikana Udoma
Port Harcourt — The Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Gregory Obi, has said that as part of measures for ending leakages accrued from fuel subsidy regime, the country will refine her oil domestically if elected in 2023.
Obi also said that the Nigeria must look beyond oil, explaining that his administration intends to leapfrog the country from oil to the Fourth Industrial Revolution through agriculture, expansion of physical infrastructure, and reduction in the cost of governance.
The former Anambra State Governor disclosed these on his verified Facebook handle, while breaking down his three envisaged paths of moving the country from consumption to production, which he said was aimed at achieving Goal 9 and Goal 12 of the sustainable development goals.
Expanding on his concept of consumption to production, he said he will unlock finance for small and medium scale enterprises, enforce a legal framework for protection of foreign and indigenous investors, and ensure that all loans are invested in regenerative projects.
“First, our focus will be on agriculture and production-centered growth for food security and export, with more emphasis on exporting finished products instead of commodities and raw materials. This relates mainly food and textiles. Nigeria has over 84 million hectares of arable land. And barely 40percent of our arable land is cultivated today. Nigeria’s arable land is her new oil and gold.
“Second, pursuant to Goal 9 of the SDGs our administration will from its inception, continue to encourage investment in infrastructure – energy, transport, irrigation, and telecoms—to grow these and other sectors.
“We are eager to quickly close the infrastructure gap between now and 2030. We will expand the frontiers of financial inclusion to ensure that SMEs have greater access to credit to grow.
“We will work with financial institutions to improve their ability to identify credit worthy borrowers; and support inventory financing, which will help to unlock finance for SMEs dealing with high account receivables.
“We will enforce the legal framework protecting foreign investors and their indigenous partners. This is the only way to tamper monopoly and capital flight.
“Third, as a nation, Nigeria must look beyond oil. We, therefore, intend to leapfrog Nigeria from oil to the Fourth Industrial Revolution by expanding physical infrastructure through market-driven reforms that will unleash growth-enabling entrepreneurship and market-creating innovations. To ensure sustainability and resilience, we will stop borrowing for consumption. All loans must be invested in regenerative projects. We shall pursue a drastic reduction in cost of governance and corruption; improve ease of doing business to attract Foreign Direct Investment to jumpstart industrialization and when borrowing is unavoidable, it will be strictly for production.
“It is also imperative that henceforth, we should strive to operate within available resources and strive for a balanced national budget as cost saving measures.
“Whatever oil we still have will be refined domestically. These measures along with ending the leakages including the subsidy regime and improving our tax regime should do the magic of moving Nigeria from consumption to production.”
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