APC national leader, Bola Tinubu, has proposed a seven-point agenda which, he said, would revive the country’s troubled economy and drastically reduce her dependence on petrodollars.
His words: “We must realise that no populous nation has ever attained broadly- shared prosperity without first creating an industrial capacity that employs large numbers of people and manufactures a significant quantity of goods for domestic consumption or export.”
Tinubu explained that the development of a national infrastructure plan; the return of commodity exchange boards and the promotion of government-backed housing programmes were important measures that could help to reposition the national economy.
The proposals are contained in the text of a recent lecture the APC leader delivered in Lagos, where he said the decline in oil prices had revealed the travesty of the country’s extant economic model.
He proposed a national industrial policy fostering the development of strategic industries, which he said, could create jobs as well as spur sustainable economic growth.
Tinubu noted that England, America and China had implemented policies to protect key industries, promote employment and encourage exports, explaining that these countries represented the past, present and immediate future of national economic achievement.
He said: “A strong common thread is their policies of buffering strategic industries in ways that allow for the expansion and growth of the overall economy. So, we must press forward with a national industrial policy fostering the development of strategic industries that create jobs as well as spur further economic growth.
“Whether we decide to focus attention on steel, textiles, cars, machinery components, or other items, we must focus on manufacturing things that Nigerians and the rest of the world value and want to buy. We must partially reshape the market place to accomplish this.”
He equally recommended a national infrastructure plan, noting that roads, ports, bridges and railways need enhancing, and new ones need to be built with the goal being to develop a coherently-planned and integrated infrastructural grid.
The APC leader said: “A national economy cannot grow beyond the capacity of the infrastructure that serves it. Good infrastructure yields a prospering economy. Weak infrastructure relegates the economy to the poorhouse. The government must take the lead.
“The focus on infrastructure has important corollary benefit. Federal expenditure for needed infrastructural spending has empirically proven in every place and in every era to boost recessionary economies and provide employment when sorely needed.
“Deficit spending in our own currency to advance this mission is neither a luxury nor a mistake. It is a fulcrum of and balanced and shared prosperity. We must overcome the economic, political and bureaucratic bottlenecks preventing us from achieving reliable electrical power.”
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