By Olasunkanmi Akoni

LAGOS—A traditional ruler in Osun State, Oluiwo of Iwoland, Oba Abdulrasheed Adewale Akanbi has urged President Muhammadu Buhari led Federal Government to encourage locally made products for export in order to insulate the nation’s economy against the present economic realities.

Akanbi gave the advice while, speaking with journalists after receiving the former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who paid him a courtesy visit on his installation as the new Oluiwo of Iwoland.

President Muhammadu Buhari

The traditional ruler who expressed confidence in the administration of Buhari to take the country to the promised land said the need for diversifying the nation’s economy became necessary in view of the global economic recession and the steady fall of Naira against the United States, US, dollar, as well as the fall in global oil price.

He advised FG to look away from oil as the major target of Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, stating that the federal government must begin to look inward by encouraging production of other God’s given natural resources of Nigeria, such as: cotton, cocoa, crops, groundnuts and other agricultural products in order to earn foreign exchange that would put the Nation’s economy back on track.

His words: “Nigeria is in a state where its currency is devaluing.  And that was what China took advantage of when her currency was devalued. When currency is devalued, that means the cost of labour in the country will be low.

“Potential manufacturers and producers in the Western world often take advantage of that. We have good human resources. It is very enormous. We don’t have the land America has and we have 170 million with over 60 percent of the population unemployed. That means, we need to start grabbing jobs in outsourcing and in manufacturing and others.

“The way we can encourage locally made products is for FG to embark on sensitization programme first. We will need to go back to farming from where we also get cotton. People wear clothes everyday. When we have cotton, there are other ideas that will come to the people that will transform to local products. With this, investors will know that the raw materials for their factories are here and the federal government will increase the import duties and encourage Nigerians to embrace farming.

“Also, Adire, kampala and Ofii (locally made fabrics) can be used for jeans. We can use our locally made clothes to sew all our clothes including those cultured clothes we copied from other continents. If we use the locally made attire to sew all our clothes, we would not be losing revenue to other economies.

“We could also use Adire to make ties, aside that, it promotes our culture, there is huge revenue attached to it. These are some of the ways to create employment.”

  Anti-graft war
 
Akanbi, while supporting the current war by the Federal government on corruption, urged the authorities, to involve accused in mutual dialogue rather than embracing public prosecution.

His words: “I think FG should talk to the people they believed have stolen public funds. I think that they should not be prosecuted in public because it is not the headway.

“My suggestion is that they should be invited for mutual dialogue amicably and giving them options. The options are; we arrest you and shame you in the public or you give us larger percent of what you have stolen, atleast 70 percent.

“The way it’s going, is getting too dirty which might even affect some people still in government. The solution, I believe is to settle out of court and with this step, I believe greater result would be achieved.”