Because the world prepares to usher within the New Yr, stakeholders throughout main sectors in Nigeria, together with manufacturing academia, safety, native authorities unions, and the Ijaw Nationwide Congress, have known as on President Bola Tinubu to make sure a greater financial system in 2025.
They famous that 2024 had been “powerful” and “troublesome,” however expressed optimism that the approaching yr would make life higher for Nigerians.
Reflecting on the underperformance of the manufacturing sector in 2024, the Director-Common of the Producers Affiliation of Nigeria, Segun Ajayi-Kadir, in an interview with Sunday PUNCH, famous that main adjustments are wanted to stimulate progress.
In line with him, the important thing to those adjustments is the total implementation of fiscal coverage and tax reforms, which he hopes the Nationwide Meeting will go within the coming yr.
He additionally emphasised the necessity for the Central Financial institution of Nigeria to stabilise rates of interest and redeem the N2.4bn foreign exchange forwards owed to producers.
Ajayi-Kadir stated, “We additionally look ahead to the enlargement of the credit score facility of the federal government. The N75bn that has been disbursed is a begin, however we’re trying ahead to the N1tn promised within the stabilisation plan, which ought to assist cushion the affect of entry to credit score.”
He urged the federal government to undertake measures to deal with inflation, significantly by addressing logistics prices, and to make sure higher synergy between fiscal and financial insurance policies to advertise sustainable progress.
Moreover, the President of the Tutorial Employees Union of Universities, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, urged the Federal Authorities to prioritise the creation of a conducive instructional atmosphere in 2025.
In line with him, younger Nigerians should have entry to high quality training, free from the burden of loans which might be more and more affecting college students in universities.
He said that whereas earlier generations of leaders loved free training and bursaries, present college students are burdened by monetary encumbrances.
“We should always not shut TETFUND, which helps tertiary training, and switch it right into a mortgage scheme. They need to lower down on their so-called excessive value of governance and expenditures. Travelling overseas six instances a yr needs to be stopped.”
The Secretary-Common of the Affiliation of Native Governments of Nigeria, Mohammed Abubakar, urged the president to make sure the graduation of native authorities autonomy in 2025.
“We proceed to thank Mr President for approving monetary autonomy for native authorities. The implementation has to start as quickly as attainable so that individuals on the grassroots will proceed to really feel the affect of the federal government. When there’s cash on the grassroots stage, the hardship that individuals are speaking about will cut back,” he stated.
Additionally, the Nationwide President, Nigeria Union of Native Authorities Workers, Akeem Ambali, stated the one method Nigeria can expertise true improvement is when Tinubu’s administration begins the implementation of native authorities autonomy in 2025.
“The long-awaited native authorities autonomy needs to be actualised in 2025, and crediting native authorities accounts needs to be carried out with out additional delay,” he said.
On his half, safety guide and Chief Govt Officer of Beacon Consulting, Dr Kabir Adamu, known as on the President to make sure the safety of lives and property of Nigerians, as said in Part 14, Subsection 2 of the Structure.
In the meantime, the Nationwide Publicity Secretary, Ezonebi Oyakemeagbegha, painted a bleak image of Nigeria’s financial system in 2024, describing it as a troublesome yr for Nigerians who had made many sacrifices.
“2024 was a tricky yr for Nigerians. Nigerians made lots of sacrifices. It may be stated to be a really unhealthy yr when it comes to the financial system,” he said.
Oyakemeagbegha known as on President Tinubu to handle the excessive value of gas, urging a discount within the pump value of petrol to “N416 per litre.”
“We now have the crude and the uncooked supplies right here; we don’t see any purpose for petrol to be this expensive. We heard that the folks doing bunkering get the crude and promote it at low charges,” he stated.
Oyakemeagbegha additionally addressed the continuing challenges with the naira’s alternate fee, stressing the necessity for the foreign money to be strengthened to compete favourably with the greenback.
He famous {that a} extra secure energy provide would profit small companies, enabling them to thrive with out fixed disruptions.
“The worldwide oil corporations ought to transfer their headquarters to the areas the place they’re getting their uncooked supplies,” he added.
- Further report by Olufemi Adediran