Nigeria’s premier chamber, the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) at the weekend agreed on the need to redirect the nation’s socio-political and economic ship for common good.
Reviewing the Nigerian economy at 53 for example, the chamber in a statement by its President, Goodie Ibru, expressed worry that unemployment rate in the country ”has risen to frightening level of 23.9 per cent; youth unemployment is at 50 per cent; the poverty situation has been worsening, currently estimated at 67 per cent (just as) the security challenges have not really abated.”
He argued that the challenge over the decades has been how to make the huge opportunities and the potentials that abound in the land work for the people, adding that the operating environment for businesses has remained difficult.
More so, he continued, the economy is inhibited by serious issues of infrastructure deficits, especially with regards to power supply, currently at less than 4000 megawatts; transportation, logistics, the quality of institutions, cost and access to funds, among others, all of which “have combined to create a burden of competitiveness for domestic enterprises.”
Continuing, he said the “situation has made the diversification of the economy very difficult and poses a risk of vulnerability.”
Ibru emphasized that the nation’s democracy has been generally stable and uninterrupted for 15 years, which, according to him “is something positive that we tend to take for granted. The potentials that the economy offers are tremendous especially with our natural endowment in agriculture, solid minerals, oil and gas
“As an oil producing nation, we continue to incur bills running into billion dollars on the importation of petroleum products. This denies the economy of the much needed foreign exchange and the tremendous multiplier effects which domestic refining of petroleum products would have offered the economy.”
[Daily Independent]
