ALMOST six years after he left office, erstwhile President Olusegun Obasanjo Sunday reflected on his administration and deplored the failure of his successor, the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, to continue with his policies.
Obasanjo stated that if his policies had been sustained by Yar’Adua, the nation’s economy would have developed.
The former president, who noted that economic transformation may not materialise until there was appreciable growth in local content development in the country, spoke yesterday in Lagos during his tour of Omatek Ventures, makers of Omatek Computers and Solar panels.
Obasanjo said if Nigeria must become an economic bloc, it must encourage patronage of indigenous products.
The former president admitted that there had been a dearth of local content initiatives in all the sectors of the economy, except for the oil and gas sector. He stressed that such initiatives were needed to drive growth in the nation’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector, among others.
Obasanjo said that the nation’s economic development should not be hindered, adding that the country should start the process of backward integration, which would encourage the growth of local industries.
Obasanjo, who lamented the crash of the nation’s stock market, stated that the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan had taken some efforts towards sustaining his policies.
While urging local manufacturers in the country to also start exporting their products abroad, the former president said encouragement should be given to those who were making efforts in this regard.
He called on the financial institutions in the country to support manufacturers. “I will never stop fighting the banks because if they are doing what they ought to be doing for economic growth, the economy should have grown better than this. If banks will succeed, they must realise that they have to make producers succeed as well. This is because the money realised is still coming back to them. However, they have improved. The consolidation has made them stronger, approachable and adventurous. But they still need to understand that they are partners with those producing,” he said.
According to him, buying locally-produced products help the producers and also the economy.
After inspecting the factory, the former president expressed satisfaction, stressing that he believed in Nigeria and what Nigerians were capable of doing positively. He described the Managing Director of Omatek, Mrs. Florence Seriki, as a woman with vision and passion and urged her to continue with her good work.
On the reversal of some of his policies by the administration that took over from him, Obasanjo said: “I think this administration (President Jonathan) has moved a bit closer to what I was preaching and promoting than the late President Umaru Yar’Adua administration did. Without mincing words, Yar’Adua’s administration made reversal of almost everything we did. I believe that Goodluck Jonathan learnt a little bit from what should be and what was reversed and he started reversing the reversals.
“For example, we said cassava flour should be put in bread, which will save us a lot of foreign exchange and also help farmers, particularly in the rural areas and alleviate poverty. It was reversed by the administration before the present one. But Jonathan has put that in place.
“Even in power, if what we put in place had been allowed, though, we may not have been where we should be, we would have been much more better. It was halted for almost two and half years by the administration that succeeded ours. But this administration, of course, at a higher cost had it back on rail.”
According to Obasanjo, once an administration gets the orientation and policies right, what needs to be done could be much easier.
Commenting on the crash of the stock market, the former president said the development was a major setback to the economy.
“People did not realise that one of the setbacks the Nigerian economy suffered was that of the stock market collapse.
“And when you have setbacks in an organisation where people had confidence and put their money with the hope that the future was going to be secure and they suddenly woke up one morning and found out that their share value had gone down, a share that was worth 100 is now 10, it will take some time to get people that have confidence back to the market and that was what happened.
“With that even if you float anything in the stock market, like the IPOs, you will not get much. But I think it is coming up again. I would want to see in a few years’ time that we are back to where we were before”, he stated.
According to the former president, once the stock market bounces back, a lot of companies will be listed.
Urging the intervention of the former president in both the stock market and patronage of locally-made goods, a representative of shareholders at the event, Mr. Sunny Nwosu, pleaded that Obasanjo should help look into the matter urgently, stressing that his intervention would bring a turnaround to the economy.
For the host, Seriki, Omatek Ventures came up after the 2003 Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) policies initiated by the former president.
The Omatek boss pleaded with Obasanjo to help in the fight for the patronage of locally-made products in the country, saying that the firm had extended its reach to Ghana, where it also has a factory.
For the Director, GreenSprings Schools, Lagos, Mrs. Lai Koiki, what government should do is to encourage indigenous manufacturers by creating the right business and political environment, which will empower the country and lift it out of the doldrums.
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