Economic crisis: Nigerians failed to think outside the box —Amosun

Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State, on Tuesday, explained that the failure of Nigerians to think outside the box had led to the current economic crisis.

He said this during a breakfast meeting with organised private sector, held at the Banquet Hall, Government House, Oke-Igbein, Abeokuta.

Amosun said the state of the nation’s economy had made governors “endangered species” among the people they are serving, adding that governors were erroneously accused of squandering the bailout funds made available to them by the Federal Government.

He submitted that over dependence on oil had made every Nigerian to be very lazy, insisting that the era of free money had gone for good.

Amosun said: “We all know where over-dependence on oil has landed us, because every one of us wants quick money. Oil made us all to be so lazy.

“Governors are now endangered species because people believe that governors collected this (bailout) money and they cannot pay and they have mismanaged.

“You know why? Because everybody is so complacent.’’

People will just say ‘no problems, allocation is coming from Abuja;’ and nobody wanted to think out of the box. And when the money stopped because we didn’t prepare for it, then there was a crisis.

“Everybody now is down. So, those are our challenges. For us to now surmount those challenges, what we need to do is to work with the private sector and create the enabling environment.”

He maintained that the state still needed  more support from the private sector to overcome the challenges by diversifying into other sectors of the economy.

Amosun reiterated that Ogun remained the only State in Nigeria that had the highest number of industries and promised that his administration would continue to build on infrastructural development that would attract employment generation.