Emmanuel Otaru
A former Governor of Anambra State and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Vice Presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi, has said that the current deteriorating situation of the country can be fixed, if the right leadership is in place.
Obi gave this assurance at the 10th annual national conference of the Academy for Entrepreneurial Studies, Nigeria (AES), with theme: “Nigeria: An Investment Haven last Thursday in Lagos.
According to Obi, “We have no other country but this. We can fix it, what is wrong is leadership. The capacity and leadership is too low. We don’t need every body to change the nation, change the leadership, just one or two persons can do it. Stop the abuse of the country”.
In his own remark, the President, AES Nigeria Governing Council, Dr. Ausbeth Ajagu, said, “so many people believe that Nigeria is cursed, I don’t want to believe it. We are blessed. We have the best climate, best oil, resources, and large population, but where did we get it wrong?” Adding, “we should tighten our belt to get it right’.
“Look at Ghana, they were behind us before, now they have constant electricity. They don’t use generators. We should ban the importation of generators into the country and improve our electricity. Necessity is the mother of invention; we should not be using generators again. It is mind boggling that we are rated among the poorest in the world”, he said further.
Ajagu equally said that to attract investments into the country, the issue of security and electricity need to be addressed. To solve the country’s problems, he said, “Stop blaming government, we need to collectively go back to God and pray for Nigeria. Pray for Nigeria last Saturday of every month by 5 PM. If we get it right spiritually we will get it right socially and economically’.
Also at the conference, the keynote Speaker, Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, was represented by his Special Adviser on Development and Investment, Mr. Boye Oyewunmi. He said, “Without the right leadership we will continue to import what God has endowed us with. Our natural resources is a distraction to our human resources if we fail to imrove it”.
According to him, Nigeria is like an open goal post, but we just refuse to score the goals. Government’s policies and legislations are constantly undermined by insecurity, news of banditry, kidnapping is affecting investment, both local and international. Even in animal kingdom security is prime. Before, we have groundnut pyramid in the North, now it is pyramid of human bodies.
He said that the richness of the country is being erased by the negative perception of insecurity. Oyewunmi said, “with creativity we can still attract investment. We are actually not a poor nation. With 100 problems, there are 1,000 opportunities”. Also at the occasion, Governor Akeredolu was admitted into the membership of AES.
On his part, the registrar of AES, Mr. Paul Umukoro, pleaded with governments at all levels to secure the country to support the theme of the conference. Adding, “life is becoming one of the cheapest commodities today. Government should provide the enabling environment for investments, rejig the ease of doing business and assist industries to compete with other counterparts”.
