A former Governor of Anambra State and 2019 Vice Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Peter Obi, has called on the President Muhammadu Buhari Federal Government to stop borrowing for consumption, and invest in the country, .
In an interview with Channels Television, on Sunday night, Peter Obi said that the Federal Government has been borrowing money and spending it on consumption, which does not impact Nigerians positively.
He made this known while reacting to the recent National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, report, which stated that the country’s economy has recorded a 5 percent growth to Gross Domestic Product, GDP,
He asked the government to stop celebrating the NBS report, but rather celebrate the growth that will pull Nigerians out of poverty.
He added that such growth should make the people have disposable income, and be able to feed themselves.
His exact words: “The type of growth I want to see, is the one that will pull Nigerians out of poverty, by making the people have disposable income and be able to feed themselves.
“We need the type of growth that will educate our children, provide primary healthcare for all the communities. We do not need growth based on speculations that government Officials are celebrating all over the place.
“The biggest engine for economic growth is the micro, small, medium enterprises. That is the practice all over the World.
“That engine today is not being supported in Nigeria. Nigeria has a total of 40 million SMEs, but there is not a properly articulated fiscal and monetary policy to support the critical sector.
“The entire loan to the private sector on Nigeria today, is about N30 trillion. Less than N1.5 trillion is going to the SMEs. This is less than five percent of the entire loan. This means Nigeria is not supporting its engine that can enhance the nation’s economic growth.
“The SMEs are the biggest employer of labour in many advanced countries of the world. We need fiscal monetary policies that would invest in this engine of growth, in order to create jobs.”