…vows to end exchange rate corruption
…says 2027 election results must count
Peter Obi, Labour Party (LP) candidate for 2023 Presidential election, on Tuesday, wondered why, despite not being at war, the Federal Government has allowed Nigerians to become refugees in their own country.
This is just as he vowed to remove corruption from Nigeria’s monetary policy, especially in the foreign exchange system.
Obi, speaking at the presentation of the book entitled, “Obi, the Political Change Agent” in Abuja, on Tuesday, urged Nigerians to rise and change the current political system and structure that do not care about the people and their welfare.
Obi, who lamented the unwanttom killings going on across the country, especially in the North East and North Central, noted that insecurity had persisted due to corruption and bad governance.
The former Anambra State governor highlighted the sufferings faced by Nigerians, as he listed iissues troubling the country to include insecurity, poverty, theft, lack of accountability by public officials, among others.
He urged collective efforts to dismantle the proceeds of ill-gotten wealth, insisting that “any country where those in government are richer than business people is an unproductive country” adding that” Avery simple definition of production is value addition.
“A simple definition of money is an exchange of value. So when people are corrupt, they’re selling money and not giving any value back. So they’re producing poverty.
“So we must use our money to purchase the value. That is what we are lacking now. And that is why people say to me, oh, you said you’re going to regularize or devalue the currency, or do this, or say, well, listen, in an organized manner.
“if you remove illicit money and the criminal money around, you’ll be able to get the value at the right space. But because everybody is stealing for 3% dollar, nobody knows the rate. Even if I have stolen 1 million Naira and I go to buy dollars, do you think about the rate? No”.
The Labour Party leader insisted that the current system is totally unproductive, adding that the country has raised “Nigerian masters” who have destroyed rail lines and other infrastructures built by the colonial masters.
Obi said the only panacea is to “rebuild the country, Nigeria, which must entail making sacrifices”.
He therefore, charged the Obidient movement and indeed Nigerians, “to look for genuine people who are willing to fix the country at all levels.
Obi also insisted that the 2027 election must be transparent, cautioning against attempts to truncate the process and thereby working against the will of Nigerians
He stressed “we will make the election count. And those who don’t want it to count, we’ll Count them.”
Sam Amadi, former Chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission(NERC), in his speech, warned that about 20 million Nigerians may join the growing population of poor people, unless the current situation in the country is urgently reversed.
Amadi, while delivering his lecture entitled “The Inevitability of a New Nigeria”, cited the statistical example, by the NPR statistics, adding that in 2019, 2020 and 2021, the poor, very poor people in Nigeria were about 45%, 42%, 45% “:. Today, it’s about 56% and growing. It’s expected that this year alone, about 20 million people will be getting into poverty group.
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“What is the problem in Nigeria? Oftentimes, we start solving problems without first understanding those problems. Both in politics, in economy, in every aspect of human endeavor, one of the biggest tragedies is to commence with earnest intensity to solve either a long-existing problem or a poorly understood problem. This is not theoretical.”
Obi, while referencing Jeffrey Sachs, leading reformers after the collapse of the U.S.S.R., did a great job with traditional economies in East Europe and Poland, who in his book, ” The End of Poverty”, came to a conclusion that reasons for failure of the efforts he made was that ” the efforts, because unlike doctors, economists do not borrow procedures from scientific procedures, like Clinical Medical researchers do. We proceed from differential diagnosis”
Amadi stated that to determine whether a country is developed or not, three areas, such as ” What is happening to poverty, unemployment and inequality” must be properly assessed
“If you like, you can look at what’s happening to the GDP per capita. But these three are the most important thing.
“So if you look at the above three clearly, you will easily come to the conclusion that Nigeria is failing and failing woefully.
“By 2019, we are described as the largest poverty nation. The World Poverty Clock showed that we had the largest collection of poverty. In 2019, Ethiopia and Nigeria were very poor. But, today, Ethiopia has more people running away from poverty.”
Amadi, while using 2019 as the base year, stated that a look at deprivation, vulnerability, access to basic needs, at least in 2019, about 154 million people don’t have the barest facility for the barest existence. Now, it’s not just that Nigeria is poor. Nigerians are getting poorer.
Amadi lamented that even the prospect of Nigerians being less poor diminishes every day.
“If you look at our debt to GDP, we look comfortable, but look at our debt to revenue and debt service, how much we are losing”, he said.
He expressed fears that the nation is increasingly not having resources to even escape poverty.
“Now, if you look at unemployment, the federal government changed the methodology and got us to about 4.7%.
“Now, the point is that unemployment is a big problem, but look at inequality, coefficients of inequality are very high. But the key point I want to leave us today is a data that shows that even by 1999 to 1994, from that time, Nigeria and Taiwan, Nigeria was generating about 1,500 megawatts, 2,500 megawatts daily. Taiwan was doing about 1,500 megawatts, he however noted that while Taiwan has graduated to producing about 35,000 megawatts, Nigeria’s electricity production has fallen
“Today, they’re doing something 35,000 and we are still at 4,000. If you are generous, sometimes 3,500.
“This is a story around stagnation and decline.Now, if you look at macroeconomic factors, they are more terrible. If you look at fragility index globally, which means that Nigeria is not just poor, Nigeria is very fragile. Nigeria is one of the most fragile nations in the world”, he noted.
Amadi blamed Nigeria’s challenges around the prevalence of wrong value system.
“Without the right values, you can’t be productive. We can’t be productive until we restore that value. And that value is a sense in which people know that they’re getting what they deserve”, he added.
He however noted that only Peter Obi has what it takes to lead Nigeria in the right direction
Nenadi Usman, the Acting National Chairman of the Labour Party, in her remarks, recalled how only four people caused the revolution that brought the Obidient Movement to liimelight
“She however assured that the party is now going down to the grassroot and physically visible.
“We have done four regional advocacy two more to go. We now have 28 states with outstanding 7 states soon to be announced with 540 LGAs out of 774 with 234 to be completed.
“Today, we are also connected with our support groups who have done a wonderful volunteer support to the movement. At this epic event, we are presenting over 200 of them with Certificate of partnership in this journey of our building process.
” Let us endeavour to energise ourselves by challenging those who held us in perpetual poverty and plummeting us into economic and social malady.
“This can be achieved by fighting with facts rather than with our fists. Fight intelligently not stupidly. Fight with our Numbers not dustility.”
“In Peter Obi we trust because he has shared with us political knowledge of how to achieve political popularity without lefting a finger yet you achieve results.
“Let us embark on this journey with hope, courage, and determination. Let us work towards a brighter tomorrow, a tomorrow that is filled with promise, opportunity, and prosperity for all”
