The Nigeria Christian Graduate Fellowship (NCGF) has warned the Federal Government to drop policies that have stifled local production and direct foreign investments (DFI) to the country.
Rising from its four-day national conference in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, the group lamented that before 2015, Nigeria was the number one investment destination in Africa.
In a statement signed by its National President, Charles Adisa, and General Secretary, Onyenachi Nwaegeruo, the NCGF decried the country’s ranking as 19th in DFI in Africa.
“Evidence abounds of institutionalised weakness in the monetary and fiscal policies currently in operation. Conference finds them ineffective in curbing the leakages in the economy,” the NCGF stated.
“The fiscal policies that routinely allocate more resources to recurrent subheads over capital expenditure are not people-oriented and are thus unproductive and impact negatively on the health of the economy.”
The group said the failure of citizens to demand accountability from the government was responsible for the recklessness in governance.
It, therefore, urged Nigerians to rise up and hold political office holders accountable as provided for in the 1999 Constitution.
The group, however, frowned at the system of patronage based on political loyalty rather than on competence and demands that quality professionals be consulted to re-engineer the economy.
Continuing, it said, “Our fiscal blueprint should reflect more of the interest of the governed through an improved budgetary process.
“Conference calls on both the public and private sectors to undertake enhanced marketing of Nigeria in the global space. Our monetary policies should be structured based on a framework of demand and supply aimed at creating stability in the economy.”
On the education sector, the conference welcomed the unbundling of Religion and National Values in the school curriculum and the restoration of Christian Religious Studies and Islamic Religious Studies as independent subjects.
However, it criticised frequent policy somersault in the education sector and described as “scandalous and unprogressive” the lowering of cut-off marks for university admission.It said the decision by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and the federal ministry of education would further bring down the education standard in the country.
It also appealed to the government to respect its various agreements with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in order to arrest the decay in publicly owned tertiary institutions.
“The NCGF faults the nefarious plan by the Federal Government and the National Universities Commission (NUC) to introduce a foreign language (Arabic Language) as a compulsory course at the undergraduate level for students of Management disciplines in our universities,” the group stated.
“Conference observes with huge discomfort the lop-sided appointment of chief executives of agencies under the federal ministry of education based on ethnic and religious considerations as virtually all of them are Northern Muslims.
“Conference, therefore, urges the Federal Government to make appropriate changes that will reflect our national multi-ethnic, multi-religious composition.”
The NCGF decried the country’s electoral processes that make it difficult for credible individuals to participate in politics and called for proper funding and independence of the nation’s electoral body.
It supported the calls for restructuring the country, adoption of sound policies, strong institutions, effective and efficient investment in public services.
Under national security, the conference expressed concern about the growing insecurity occasioned by terrorism, armed robbery, kidnapping, agitations, hate speeches and the criminal activities of herdsmen across the country.
“As long as any group of persons is allowed to engage freely in wanton killings and destruction without prosecution, Nigerians will tend to question the commitment of the Federal Government and its agencies to protecting lives and property as guaranteed by the Constitution,” the NCGF said.
