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What Buhari’s minister nominee has to say about Nigeria’s economy
Following the receipt of the names of 43 ministerial nominees sent by President Muhammadu Buhari to the National Assembly, the red chamber on Wednesday commenced the screening of the minister designates.
President of the Senate, Dr Ahmad Lawan had announced that there would be two sessions for the exercise.
He said the morning session would commence by 10:00 a.m. daily and terminate at 1:00 p.m., while the second session would commence by 2:00 p.m. and end in the evening “depending on the mood of the Senate.”
Dr Uchechukwu Ogah, the nominee from Abia opened the floor by introducing himself to the lawmakers and requesting for questions.
Sen. Adamu Aliero (APC Kebbi) and Sen. George Sekibo (PDP Rivers) were the first to ask Ogah questions about the solutions to what they described as the slow economic growth and youth unemployment in the country.
Ogah, in his answer, identified building of critical infrastructure and agriculture as ways out of the current challenges.
Read also: IMF expects more, raises Nigeria’s growth rate to 2.3%
He said: “We need to improve our critical infrastructure, that’s the only way we can create jobs.
“We do not need to also concentrate our industries in the urban areas; we need to create industries in the rural areas.
“We cannot put our economy purely on oil. Yes, agreed that oil is a cash cow but we can develop our agriculture.
“Nigeria has the capacity to feed the whole world. Nigeria economy is about N43 trillion and the private sector is expected to drive the nation’s economy.”
On deregulation, Ogah said the country needed a guided deregulation where everything is not dumped on the economy.
He also insisted that the current value of the naira was okay.
By Babatunde Alao…
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