Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa, President, Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), on has said the present two per cent economic development being pursued by the Federal Government would not engender an economic growth the country so desired.
Ohuabunwa made the comment in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of his Public Lecture delivered at the Crawford University, Igbesa.
The 6th Public Lecture delivered at the Multipurpose Hall of the Faith-based University was entitled “When Will Nigeria Become a First Nation.’’
Ohuabunwa, the Guest Speaker at the public lecture, said that the economic policy should be one that would be ahead of the population and not the one behind the population growth.
“The economic policy which we have now is not sustainable although it has helped to take us out of recession, but more than that we need the one that will be incremental.
“Right now our economic projection is to grow by two per cent which we are struggling to keep but the population is growing by three to four per cent.
“Until we grow above that projection, there will be no economic growth because what this is literally telling us is that we are sharing what one person should have for three people.
“We need to understand where we are getting it wrong because economy cannot be growing at two per cent, while the population is growing by four per cent, such cannot work,’’ he said.
Ohuabunwa advised the government to look into creating investment opportunities, a panacea to creating wealth among the populace and thus reducing poverty.
“Nigeria should be growing its population more by than four per cent, and what we need to do simply is to get the responses from the economy and push towards investments.
“We need to create more investments because it engenders enterprise, while that will lead to job creation and then poverty will be swept away from our society.
“We need to look into our population and see how we can make it productive, we should invest in it and do away with policy somersaults; we need a consistent policy.
“Nigeria’s population is enough to service the world, so I wonder why we are not using our strength,’’ he said.
Ohuabunwa said that good economic policy was one that would make the country to look away from the earnings from oil and focus on investment.
“Each person in Nigeria needs to contribute to the economy and not dependent on it, if people cannot work for another person they should work for themselves, that is productivity.
“Let Nigeria seek to export her products abroad; we have people who really want to work but no tools and financial backbone to achieve that; this is where government should come in.
“If we are self-sustaining, then, we will look away from oil money which will only be for the growth of infrastructure.
“The present economic plan has taken us away from recession, but if we are not careful, it will lead us back to it,’’ he said.
