With more than 133 million multidimensionally poor Nigerians, overwhelming insecurity, high inflation and dwindling purchasing power of an ordinary Nigerian, the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) has said that the country is now at the precipice, pointing to potential more risks of stagnation and distress if a low-growth and low-investment era persists.
“Our nation stands at a critical precipice, and our challenges demand immediate, concerted efforts,” chairman of the NESG, Mr Niyi Yusuf, told President Bola Tinubu on Monday at the opening of a two-day opening session of the 29th Nigeria Economic Summit (#NES29).
“We need to act now with a shared sense of urgency,” Yusuf declared.
The NESG futher said: “the future of the Nigerian Child is at stake, across every geopolitical zone.The Nigerian ageing population is also at risk.”
It raised the fears about a high prospect that a retiree’s savings and investments could be eroded entirely just a few years into the first or second decade of retirement.
The NESG boss said Nigeria’s high fertility rate which is driving a much higher population growth than economic growth poses a risk of an unproductive population bulge, with an unmanageable social infrastructure cost and burden for supporting the children’s health, nutrition and education.
Yusuf said a multi-trillion dollar economy growth trajectory will urgently need certain actions including macroeconomic stabilisation programme supported by an aggressively scaled national security effort to halt all forms of syndicated and organised crime around crude oil and solid minerals; a made-in-Nigeria Agenda.
Yusuf said to made-in-Nigeria goods, two strategic drivers require urgent investment – a national emergency energisation programme to enable access to stable, predictable, and affordable electricity supply; a national infrastructure corridor development programme – an efficient and integrated transport and logistics network that links value chains to sea, air and land ports.
Addressing the gathering at Transcorp Hilton in Abuja, Yusuf said the need for urgent strategic shifts that impact the ease and cost of doing business within a relatively short period was a matter of existential threat to the survival of enterprises and entrepreneurs.
He stressed that the low access to and increasing cost of FX, high cost of inventory, imported inputs, and operations, coupled with the diversity of taxes, continue to erode business balance sheets, with resultant contraction in production and employment.
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