- As Peter Obi canvases massive investment in education
Former Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama has joined his voice for calls for the reopening of the Nigerian borders.
He said Nigeria as the biggest economy on the African continent should not lose sight of its position to as the economy of smaller West African nations remained most threatened by the continued closure of Nigeria’s economy.
He spoke at the Sheraton Hotels, Ikeja, Lagos, at the seventh annual lecture series of RealNews Magazine, where he spoke on the theme: Beyond Politics: an economic narrative for West Africa.
The event had former Ambassador to the United States, prof George Obiozor, Pioneer President of the Nigeria Economic Group Prof Anya O. Anya, the Governor of Anambra State, Chief Willie Obiano, who was represented by the Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment Mr C Don Adinuba, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation Mr Boss Mustapha, who was represented by a delegation led by Mr Tajudeen Kareem, Publisher Ovation Magazine, Chief Dele Momodu, and other top media chiefs, led by the Chairman of the Lagos Council of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) Dr Qasim Akinreti, the President Guild of Corporate Online Publishers (GOCOP), Mr Dotun Oladipo, and several other top notch personalities in attendance.
Mahama said: “I want to call on the Nigerian government to, in the overall interest of our people, open its borders so that commercial activities on the sub-region can resume.”
Addressing his colleague brother Presidents on the continent, the former Ghanaian leader said leaders must provide leadership that would jumpstart the economic prosperity of their respective nations adding that African youths are becoming dissatisfied with merely voting every four years without a commensurate growth or impact of governance.
Mahama said west Africa is a resource rich sub-region blessed with bountiful minerals and
natural commodities, adding that the region stands out on the global map. “To cite a few
examples, Guinea has an estimated 25% of the world’s known bauxite reserves, which translates to some 1.8 billion metric tons, Ghana, together with Cote d’Ivoire is responsible for about 65% of the world’s cocoa beans used to produce cocoa products across the globe. Our two countries also have oil, and Ghana is already exploring this resource, which is contributing to our GDP. According to World Bank reports, Ghana is Africa’s largest producer of gold, overtaking South Africa and the 6th largest in the world.
Nigeria is Africa’s largest producer of oil and gas and the 6th largest in the world, producing an estimated 2.5 million barrels of crude oil a day. Indeed, each of the 16 nations of West Africa are either rich in agriculture, precious minerals like gold and diamonds, or oil and gas. We also have arable land that can feed a huge part of the whole world.”
He said the sub-region is home to a population of 400 million, about half of which can be found in Nigeria, a country which according to AfDB African Economic outlook contributes nearly 70% of the regions GDP.”
Mahama said for West Africa to leverage maximally and benefit from its demographic size, there is need for leaders to leapfrog its economic development by adapting innovation to increase productivity and free more people from back-breaking labour.
“We must grow our SMEs and blue collar labour. SMEs and middle level blue collar manpower have been the main drivers of growth in middle income Latin American and Asian economies. This means that our educational curriculum must be rejigged to produce the skilled human resources to drive the real sector.”
Mahama however said though democracy has engendered relative peace and has produced increased popular participation, which is conducive for investment and creativity, the over two decades of democratic journey has not translated to improvement in the human development index.
He therefore challenged African leaders to provide leadership that will continue to let the people have faith in the democratic process and begin to promote a new economic narrative that sould support the growth of the each member nation of the ECOWAS sub-region.
In his own lecture, Vice president, Country Operations Islamic Development Bank Dr Mansur Muhtar said the greatest headache besetting Nigeria is leadership, adding that corruption has eaten deep into the nation’s fabric that ethnic balancing rather than meritocracy has become the order of the day.
Rather than breeding strong institutions, Nigeria, Muhtar, who was a former Minister of Finance said we have stronger personalities who continued to undermine our collective growth prospects.
Speaking on the sub theme: The end of oil, whither the Nigeria economy, Muhtar observed that the oil has been more of a curse than a blessing for Nigeria.
According to the economic expert, Nigeria’s greatest asset lies not in oil or solid minerals but in the huge human capital, urging Nigerian governments whether federal, states or local to focus on education, good governance and investment in the social infrastructure.
“More than ever before, we need to begin to consider the primacy of leadership, we need to concentrate on the delivery of good governance, integrity and honesty in public service, transparency and accountability.”
He also called for the reformation of the civil service because of the role it has to play in implementing the policies of government. He said as constituted, the nation’s public service need to be professionalized to be able to deliver quality service to the public.
Vice Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Mr Peter Obi said Nigeria should stop its undue attention on oil that has continued to fail its people.
“The world is moving away from oil, we should move the way the world is moving, we made $18.1 billion from oil in 2018, on November 11, AliBaba made in two hours $18.2billion in sales on the internet. $18 billion is not up to Facebook revenue in 2018, yet 200 million of us want to kill ourselves over oil.”
He said the way to go is aggressive pursuit of education, adding that the massive investment in manpower.
The Publisher of Real News Magazine Maureen Chigbo said the theme of this year’s anniversary was carefully chosen to deepen the content of thoughts on leadership and how Africa can solve its myriad of challenges.
She thanked the Ghanaian leader for leaving all his busy schedule to personally attend the event, adding that all the discussants at the event are carefully chosen to contribute their quota to Africa’s economic development.
She asked all those who have never visited the website before to do so and enlist in order to continue to enjoy incisive and analytical investigative journalistic reportage whiuch has been the hallmark of Real News since its inception. She added that Real News now exists on the App which can be downloaded either at the Iphone or Apple Play Store.
