Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has once again picked holes in the Federal Government’s policies which he says have brought Nigeria into its current status as the poverty capital of the world, world capital for out-of-school children, and now nation with the highest unemployment rate on earth.
Nigeria, he said, is at the precipice and that it is obvious the current administration lacks the capacity to address its challenges.
Abubakar made the comments on Sunday in a statement entitled: “World’s Highest Unemployment Rate: Time to Help This Government Help Nigeria.”
It was his response to a report from Bloomberg Business on March 27, 2021, which predicted that Nigeria is about to emerge as the nation with the highest unemployment rate on earth.
He said Nigeria got to its current sorry state because the current administration abandoned the people-centred leadership and free trade and deregulatory policies of the Obasanjo years, and is implementing “command and control policies” that have led to massive capital flight from the country.
Despite paucity of funds, Abubakar said the Buhari Administration has continued to increase its involvement in sectors that ought to be left to the private sector “with the latest being the ill-advised $1.5 billion so-called rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt Refinery that has failed to turn a profit for years.”
He particularly decried government’s inadequate attention to youth unemployment, which he said is at the root of the unprecedented insecurity challenges Nigeria is currently facing.
“Idleness is the worst feature of unemployment because it channels the energy of our youths away from production, and towards destruction, and that is why Nigeria is now the third most terrorized nation on earth,” he said in the statement he personally signed.
As solutions to bring down unemployment, the former vice president repeated his call for every family in Nigeria with at least one school age child and earning less than $800 per annum, to be paid a monthly stipend of N5,000.
He said unless Nigeria implements policies that get its 13.5 million out-of-school children into school, the floodgates of unemployment will be further opened in the coming years.
He also insisted that Nigeria is better off privatizing its refineries and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation “through the time-tested LNG model in which the FG owns 49 per cent equity and the private sector 51 per cent.”
He added: “Recall that in 20 years ending 2020, the NLNG had delivered $18.3 billion dividends to government irrespective of taxes and other benefit accruals to the country. This will not only free the government of needless spending, but also clean up the infrastructure mess in the petroleum downstream sector.”
Abubakar also spoke of the need to incorporate youths who are above school age into a massive public works programme.
“Perhaps we may want to consider the Malaysian model, whereby with the exception of very few highly specialized jobs, foreign contractors are not allowed to import labour into the country,” he added.
More importantly, Abubakar suggested three things that must be done urgently to encourage capital inflow and foreign direct investment.
He said: “First, Nigeria must move towards a single exchange rate to be determined by market forces. Secondly, the federal and state governments must reduce taxes, to make Nigeria more business-friendly. And finally, financial and monetary institutions, like the Central Bank of Nigeria, and the Securities and Exchange Commission, must be free from the type of political influence that resulted in the prohibition of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.”
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