Former Deputy Governor of Edo, Mr Philip Shaibu, on Tuesday said that in the past one year President Bola Tinubu has made visible and conscious to stabilise the nation’s economy.
Shaibu, speaking with news men in Abuja shortly after been installed as the Patron of Edo Journalists in Abuja, said with time the economy would overcome its present challenges.
”I want to say that I am seeing conscious effort by the president to stabilise the economy.
“I see him working really hard, trying to bring experts, trying to get international community to buy into his vision of developing and growing our economy’’, Shaibu said.
He said that with an economy as complex as Nigeria’s, it would take a magician to fix it in one year.
”We know that. But in terms of infrastructure, I see conscious efforts to build infrastructure, which is also a driver of the economy.
”I saw what he did in Lagos just three days ago, and in Abuja, I’m seeing lots of bridges being constructed.
”Like in my own street, for more than 10 years, Arab contractors abandoned the roads, including my street and the bridge connecting to zone one and seven, within six, seven months the road is ready for commissioning.
”So for me, infrastructure wise, I can see that there is serious boost in infrastructure development, though there are still lots of things to do’’, he said.
The former deputy governor called for deliberate efforts to build small and medium scale enterprises.
”We now need to consciously move to that next stage of building small scale and medium scale businesses.
”It is key and we must now turn Nigeria to a production economy, and that is why I am making governor Otti my number one governor for now.
”We need to start earning forex and the only way we can do that is for us to be a production economy.
“But before we rush into building or going into any forex, we need to produce for our local consumption’’, he said.
He said when the country was able to meet its local consumption it would be 50 per cent in dealing with inflation and capital flight.
”But if we continue this hollow block approach to building or retaining wall, you know, it’s disaster because that’s what I’m seeing now in what CBN is trying to do.
”So we need to consciously go into agriculture, and when we are going into that like I always say, government has no business in business.
“Government has a business to provide enabling environment’’, he said.
Shaibu said there was need for the CBN to rejig its system with commercial banks with low interest rates.
”For us to be a production economy, especially in agriculture, if we are able to deal with the `stomach infrastructure` that will help to reduce the level of hunger.
”The whole issue of salary and wages, for me, is not the way forward, the way forward is how to make sure that we have food on our tables. First we must produce for our consumption’’, he said.
Shaibu commended Gov. Alex Otti of Abia for providing visionary leadership for the state.
”He has also done well in terms of trying to grow the GDP as well as expand the economy of Abia.
“I see a genuine technocrat bringing meaningful development and experience to open up Abia to the world.
”That has repaired some of the doubt we were beginning to have about this so called technocrats, because in my state it didn’t work, but it’s working in Abia’’, he told newsmen.
Shaibu said that in terms of security, the performance of the present administration in the country was relative.
According him, the situation is not as bad as it used to be. I can bet that it’s gradually stabilising. I can tell you that the level of insecurity in the country is going down.
‘’We are not yet there, but I can bet that it is not what it used to be, So I can say kudos to the president and the present sets of security heads. They are bringing the temperature down.
‘’But I think they still need to do more’’, he said.
