Governors have told President Muhammadu Buhari that there is an urgent need to diversify the economy in order to ensure that Nigeria is one of the top economies of the world.
The governors under the aegis of the Nigeria Governors Forum, NGF insisted that diversifying the economy would help boost the internally generated revenue base of the country.
Chairman of the forum and governor of Zamfara State, Abdul’aziz Yari said this while speaking during the beginning of a two-day Internally Generated Revenue workshop organised by the NGF.
Yari, who was represented by Kano State governor, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje said “Economic diversification is vital to ensuring the long-term economic growth we seek. We must ensure that we are competitive in the way we diversify our economy, and ensure that the private sector plays a stronger role going forward.
“This event should guide our states to share practical and effective experiences for boosting revenue generation and also provide strategies to kick-start the process.”
He explained that the workshop is being organised at a vital time when Nigeria is facing economic crisis and the electorate expect huge performance from their elected officials.
He said every governor will adopt the findings of the summit as an important action plan for ensuring a more robust internally generated revenue base for states.
He added that “We will also expect periodic briefings from our secretariat on the status of these plans and how our states have been able to implement them.”
Governor of Imo State, who is also the Chairman of Progressives Governors’ Forum, Chief Rochas Okoracha also added that leakages in states led to inability to pay salaries.
He said “We have enough resources to run the states but there are so much leakages. There are cultural challenges, no nation can grow above its cultural resources. Culture has a lot to do in our politics and economy. Let us develop our land and be less oil- dependent.”
While speaking with journalists, he said “While we are looking at our IGR, which has its challenges, we should also look inwards and start to develop the resources of our land, which is mainly agriculture.
“Now that things have gone the way they have gone and are going the way they are going in this country, we have no other option but to attempt ‘for the very first time’ to develop properly the resources of our land, with emphasis on agriculture, which hitherto had given us over 70 per cent opportunity of employment and had been largely responsible for our foreign exchange.”