Nigeria must undergo reforms for rapid development — Olateru

Director-General of Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB), Mr Akin Olateru, has called for a comprehensive reforms in the country’s socioeconomic sectors, with a view to enhancing the wellbeing of the citizenry and overall growth and development of Nigeria.

The Director-General, who made the call while being honoured as the ‘Most Outstanding Public Servant’ at the Nigerian Service Award organised by COA Media in Abuja, revealed how an estimated of 3.5 million Nigerians  who join the labour market yearly with their prospect of being gainfully  employed at the end of the day get very weakened due  to lack of  job creations and unavailability of entrepreneurial skills.

In  his keynote address at the event, titled: ‘Breaking Barriers to National Development’, the NSIB DG noted that engaging in agribusiness, job creations, strengthened public services, implementing fiscal and monetary measures aimed at stimulating the economy and achieving quick recovery, improved working conditions for civil servants in both private and  public sectors for optimal performance, among others, are required to  adequately address the economic and social barriers that have hindered the  national development.

He lamented that Nigeria, after 63 years of independence and despite being the largest economy and population in Africa in rapid human and infrastructural development, still faces multiple  socio-economic barriers  fully manifested in the low and fragile economic growth, poor infrastructure, poor electricity/ energy supply, primary product dependency, foreign currency gap and capital flight, human capital inadequacies, poverty, corruption, insecurity, illiteracy, unemployment, among others.

According to Olateru, the socioeconomic barrier challenge has also caused many Nigerians to continue to leave the country in droves in search of greener pastures to other countries of the world which, he said,  has resulted in massive emigration of the country’s greatest minds in search of more favourable living conditions and greener pastures across the world.

His words: “Inadequate infrastructures such as good road network and stable power supply hinder economic activities in the areas of local manufacturing and production of the domestic products and have grossly affected the volume of the country export, making to many Nigerians rely heavily on imported products”.

According to Olateru,  poverty rate in Nigeria, according to the World Bank, is expected to reach 37 percent in 2023, with an estimated 84 million Nigerians living below the poverty line.

“This would make Nigeria the world’s  second largest poor population after India, saying that the world Bank,” he said, that Nigerian economy is to grow at an  average of 3.4 percent between 2023 and 2025, as a result of the reforms the government has embarked upon.

He therefore, called on all Nigerians to key into, and support the current government of president Bola Ahmed Tinibu’s Socio-economic Reform programmes  aimed at repositioning the country for the benefit of all .

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