Lack of confidence and political leadership are some of the factors that have retarded Nigeria’s economic growth.
The Chief Executive Officer of a financial advisory company, The CFG Advisory, Mr. Adetilewa Adebajo, made this known while speaking exclusively to The Next Edition in Lagos.
He also identified insecurity as a huge problem that must be resolved before investors can come into the country.
“When you don’t have business confidence and there is no confidence in political leadership, it’s a problem. Then we have the security problem which has transcended from Boko Haram to Fulani herdsmen. If these issues are not resolved, nothing else can happen in Nigeria,” he said.
He opined that the government should, as a matter of priority, resolve the security issues and provide the enabling environment for investors, especially locally based investors.
According to him, Nigerians who have the capacity to invest should be encouraged to do so as that would boost the confidence of foreign investor to come in.
“This is very necessary because if we don’t have that why should we expect the big companies to come,” he said.
Mr. Adebajo also noted that there was a direct correlation between the insecurity in the country and inflation witnessed by the country.
His words: “One of the problems we had with the economy was inflation, which was persistently high and that was because of food inflation and there is a direct correlation between that and the problems in the North East of the country.
“All the people who are now in the IDP camps were productive Nigerians who were producing agricultural products and adding it to the market. But because they don’t have that productive capacity anymore we began to see high food inflation.”
READ ALSO: Strike: JOHESU plans mass rallies, picketing
To create a stable environment that will encourage investments, the financial expert said, government must ensure that its policies are stable.
“For me what is important is to create an environment that is secure and safe for people. Then, you create the enabling environment by making sure your policies are stable and consistent and you also as government, run the government responsibly so that you are not just having deficit, you can’t balance your budget and you are spending money on things that are not sustainable. If you run a responsible government and right size the government, everything else will follow,” he stressed.
On right sizing the government, he urged that the issue of ghost workers must be properly addressed and dealt with.
Furthermore, he advised that government should find a sustainable model to run teaching hospitals as well as tertiary institutions in the country in order to free up capital for areas such as security, primary healthcare and primary education, which ought to be its main focus.
On policing, he said while not totally supporting state police, the Federal Government should work out a model whereby the state governments pick up part of the responsibility of policing their states.