By Ediri Ejoh & Prince Okafor
Except Nigeria addresses the political and constitutional reforms system, it’s economy recovery plan may not be achieved, as over 70 percent of its resources will be spent on recurrent expenditures and other dysfunctional political uncertainties, the Chief Executive Officer, RTC Advisory Services, Opeyemi Agbaje, said.
This came as he described the population control system of the country as “an instrument of large illiterate, unemployed idle army, that can be used to terrorize Nigerians.”
Speaking during a panel section at the Vanguard Economic Discourse, titled Economy in Rebound: ‘Pitfalls, Trajectories and Resetting’, he explained that there was three principal structure needed to move the country’s economy forward.
According to him, “Nigeria number one imperative is hinted on political and constitutional reforms.
Without these reforms, we would continue to spend 70 percent of our resources on recurrent expenditure; have dysfunctional state government who have responsibilities but no powers as well as the Federal Government wasting a large part of its resources on secondary schools and universities development.
“The second imperative is on social policy to improve education, skills, healthcare and to generate employment for Nigerians, in fact to turn our population into an asset rather than the liability that it threatens to be.”
Agbaje maintained that the country needs to change the incentives of government, adding, “Right now, it is structured in a way that you become the Governors or legislators and then collects the revenue and resources of the state. That system will not provide the needed development for the country.
“The final imperative and I think that has been the core of our discuss today, is economic policy to restore private capital as the bases of our economic development to promote economic competiveness especially for exports, so we can change the structure of our external sector to increase government revenue.
“If we don’t change the structure of our taxation system in Nigeria, and turn this country into a country whose revenues are generated through the strides of its citizens, we are not going to get things right.”
