If elected, Peter Obi, a presidential hopeful for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), claims he will replace the monthly allocation sharing system with a production model.
According to NAN, Obi, an industrialist, revealed this in Calabar when he visited PDP delegates ahead of the party’s presidential primary on May 28 and May 29.
The former Anambra governor stated that if the country is to survive, everyone must be productive, noting that other countries were busy producing while Nigeria was busy sharing and consuming.
He stated that it was not the time to dance and celebrate as a country, but rather to work and repair the country.
“Nigeria is a nation of over 200 million people with about 100 million living in poverty, over 18 million out of school children out of which about 10 million are girls,” Obi said.
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“We have 35 per cent unemployment rate and if we add underemployment it will rise to over 50 per cent, many of which are youths in their productive age, so we cannot be celebrating.”
Obi also stated that there was nothing wrong in borrowing as a nation as the largest economies in the world were also in debt but the problem of Nigeria was that it was borrowing for consumption.
“The consequence of borrowing for consumption today is that Nigeria is spending over 90 per cent of its revenue to service debts without much production to show for it,” he added.
“Exporting crude oil has not saved Venezuela or any country, we need to invest in our massive landmass and grow our economy like other nations such as Singapore, Vietnam and even Morocco have done with tourism.”
