Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, has expressed worries over the havoc that insecurity may cause Nigerian economy.
According to him, the country needs to embrace a national long-term social and economic development framework, with a broad acceptance by critical stakeholders, to provide a pathway towards fixing the malaise that has too long mitigated against attaining the country’s fullest national potentials.
The speaker, who spoke during a public hearing in Abuja on Monday, said that the House recently considered and adopted motions on the need for Nigeria to develop a long term social and economic framework vision and the need to make adequate loans for a post-oil economy in Nigeria.
He lamented that currently, the country is at the mercy of fluctuations in the global price of oil and gas at a time that the price is no more sustainable in the market.
“We have a limited window of time to act before worsening circumstances force our hands in ways we cannot predict.
‘’I urge you to move with due haste, paying attention to all the intervening events without being distracted by them”, Gbajabiamila said.
Meanwhile, the Minister of State, Budget and National Planning, Mr Clement Agba, has advised that there must be a cordial between its economic plans and various regional agreements the country has signed.
The minister revealed that the ministry considered many factors in the preparation of the Medium Term National Development Plan 2021-2025, and Nigeria agenda 2050.
This, he said, included the review of the African Union Agenda 2063 and the Economic Community of West African States vision 2050 and the Sustainable Development Goals, 2030.
“This is to ensure that there is alignment between our plans and these various regional agreements we have signed into. And we have ensured that with the SDGs, the 17 goals have been merged to be aligned with the 26 Technical Working Groups that we have,” he noted.
He added: “The reason for concentric diversification is that often, Nigerians keep saying the economy is not diversified, that’s absolutely incorrect, the Nigeria economy is diversified.
‘’The problem with our diversification is that it is not concentrating. We keep saying the economy is heavily dependent on oil. It was some years ago when oil was contributing about 70- 80% of revenue and about 95% of our foreign exchange, but today the non-oil sectors contribute about 55 per cent, which is higher than the contribution of oil to the national revenue.”