Residents of Chief Rotimi Williams Estate in Lagos have urged the Federal Government to encourage the adoption of community-based solutions towards solving many of the challenges facing the country.
This was the highlight of their submissions after a symposium which was organized by the residents under the aegis of the Chief Rotimi Williams Estate Residents Association on Friday in commemoration of Nigeria’s independence anniversary.
Speakers at the event, which included politicians, bankers, legal practitioners, management consultants agreed that the country is currently beset by myriads of problems.
They identified lack of fiscal federalism, official corruption, holding on to primordial sentiments in dealing with critical issues of national development as some of the major challenges preventing Nigeria from realizing her potential.
Among speakers were a retired banker, Chief Felix Olaluwoye, former Head of Marketing and Business Development of PZ Cussons Plc and CEO of Smartek Appliances Limited, Mr. Festus Ugwoke, an ICT expert and CEO of Orange Computers Limited, Mr. Nnamdi Okoro, a lawyer and human rights activist, Oyewale Freeman, Managing Director of Netchcoms, Mr. Peter Igbinedion, a politician and chieftain of the All Progressive Congress in Lagos, Mr. Olugbenga Agoye.
Ugokwe, in his submission, regretted that Nigeria’s economy looked too gloomy with the negative statistics that show that the future, if nothing is done to arrest the situation, is bleak.
He said, “Looking at the economy, our case looks even gloomier! Within the last 6 years, Nigeria economy has shrank by over 25% from $575B GDP size in 2014 to about $430B GDP as at December 2020. The per capita income has also dwindled from $3,100 as at 2014 down to $2,097, a drop of over 33%. Again, inflation particularly food inflation has worsened reaching over 21% compared to single digit inflation as at 2007.
“He regretted that what is even more scaring is that while the economy is struggling with about 2% actual annual average GDP growth since 2016, the population is estimated to be growing at 3.75% annually meaning that our population will double every 22years. Economists believe that any nation that has its population growing faster than its economy is in a bad situation.”
Ugokwe called for community-based solutions where small communities, villages, estates to development micro-strategies that take care of the needs of their immediate societies rather than wait for mega projects that at the end of the day do not translate to economic empowerments for the local communities.
Olaluwoye advised Nigerian leaders to look back in history and see how political and economic leaders of the time handled socio-political and economic challenges.
Okoro raised the alarm that loss of value has also contributed in no small dimension to the challenges Nigeria currently faces. “We have to look at ourselves. What is our value system. You cannot remove our current challenges from the disregard for family and communal systems which held the society together in the decades before,” Okoro said
Agoye, while blaming lack of participation in political process on ignorance, accused the elite of stay aloof from politics just as he said they have no moral standing to accuse those who get into leadership positions when they stay away from the leadership recruitment process.
He listed preparation, participation and performance as key yardsticks to be measured to see whether there is active involvement of the best of the society in the political process.
Chairman of the Estate, Pastor Seyi Adeyemi, said the purpose of using the independence anniversary to put together the event was to ignite new interests in finding solutions to challenges in the immediate environments.
“We are happy with the suggestions and postulations and we must ensure that those in authorities get the recommendations of events such as this as part of the overall contributions to nation-building.
Packaged by Timilehin Olalere
