A presidential aspirant under the Peoples Democratic Party, Peter Obi, has told party stakeholders in Enugu State that he will rescue Nigeria from its present economic woes if given an opportunity to lead the country.
Obi, who was in Enugu to consult with state Executive members of the party, lamented the dwindling economic fortunes of Nigeria and blamed it on poor civilian leadership that has been installed in the country from 1999 to the present.
Briefing journalists shortly after the meeting held at the party’s Secretariat, the former governor of Anambra state decried the country’s debt burden.
Obi noted that if nothing urgent was done to change the status quo, the current leaders would plunge the nation into more debt.
We even borrow to service debts. What we are sharing is finished. We need wealth creators. We need to move Nigeria from a consumptive nation into a productive nation.
“The problem of Nigeria is leadership. The cumulative effect of the failure of our leadership in the past decades is what we are suffering from now. So we just have to do things right. Countries don’t fail overnight.”
The PDP presidential aspirant asserted that the best way to save Nigeria from its present economic woes was to shoot up the production sector by ensuring that all borrowings are channeled into the productive sector.
Others, he said, were to reduce the cost of running governance, create job opportunities for the teeming population of Nigerian youths and enhance food security for every Nigerian.
Speaking on the incessant killings across the country, Obi said if given the opportunity to lead he would curtail it to pave way for the production sector to thrive, noting that food security would be one of the top priorities of his administration.
“Natural security is when human beings know where their next meal will come from. 98 million Nigerians are living below the poverty line. The poverty rate in Nigeria with a population of about 200 million people is far higher than that of China and India with populations of over 2.8 billion people combined.
“Unemployment rate in Nigeria is the highest. More than fifty percent of our young people who are of production age are doing nothing. We want to move Nigeria from consumption to production. Everybody is suffering the pains.”