An economic retreat convened by the present
administration to offer solutions to the current
economic challenges facing Nigeria will hold on
Monday and Tuesday next week.
The retreat, being put together by the National
Economic Council, which has the 36 state
governors as members and Vice-President Yemi
Osinbajo as chairman, will hold in the
Presidential Villa, Abuja.
According to a statement on Thursday by the
Senior Special Assistant to the Vice-President
on Media and Publicity, Mr. Laolu Akande,
President Muhammadu Buhari will deliver the
keynote address during the retreat’s opening
session on Monday.
Akande said Osinbajo, being the chairman of
NEC, which is an advisory body to the President,
would preside over the retreat with governors
from the 36 states of the federation attending.
Others expected at the meeting, according to
the statement, are the Central Bank Governor,
Godwin Emefiele; and the Minister of Budget
and National Planning, Udo Udoma, among other
top government functionaries.
The statement reads, “The objective of the NEC
retreat is to provide a forum for in-depth
discussions by NEC members of the policy
actions that the states and the Federal
Government can consider in order to stimulate
local production, cut costs and enhance public
revenues among other measures to stimulate
the economy.
“Contrary to suggestions, the retreat is not an
emergency national economic conference.
“The idea was mooted at the last regular NEC
meeting in January, where members requested
an intensive session to review economic trends
and evolve strategies to cope.”
The retreat, which was earlier fixed for March
10 and 11, was later put off to allow for more
preparations on the part of the organisers.
Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, had called
on the President to summon an emergency
economic meeting to chart a course to save the
country from further drift.
Soyinka, who made the call when he visited the
Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai
Mohammed, in Abuja, had said experts and
consumers should be invited to the meeting.
“The President should call an emergency
economic conference, with experts to be invited;
consumers, producers, labour unions, university
experts, professors, etc. I think we really need
an emergency economic conference, a rescue
operation, bringing as many heads as possible
together to plot the way forward,” Soyinka had
said.
Meanwhile, Buhari said the current economic
crisis, plaguing the nation, was a blessing in
disguise.
Buhari said this at the opening ceremony of the
International Islamic Conference on Peace and
Nation Building in Abuja on Thursday.
The President said through the hardship,
Nigerians would be able to come up with ideas
that would in turn lead to development.
He said, “The global economic challenges the
world is grappling with today might well turn out
to be a blessing for us in Nigeria, because it will
stimulate the latent economic opportunities that
we have left untapped for decades.
“Poverty breeds disaffection, which in turn leads
to crime and lawlessness, including
confrontation against the state. To checkmate
this, we must work hard to lift our economy,
engage our youths and rebuild infrastructure.’’
Buhari lamented the level of official corruption
in the nation, adding that it led to many years of
hardship for Nigerians. He, however, promised
to do everything possible to curb the menace.
While declaring the conference open, the
President commended the Jama’atu Izalatil
Bid’a Wa Iqamatis Sunna and the Muslim World
League for the event at a time when the nation
was grappling with insecurity.
Buhari, who described Boko Haram as a
mindless terrorist organisation, said the Federal
Government was winning the fight against
insurgency.
He said once the war was over, the government
would commission a sociological study to
determine the origin, the remote and immediate
causes of the movement, its sponsors, its
international connections if any, to ensure that
measures were taken to prevent a resurgence.
The President added, “The tragic paradox of the
global insurgency situation is that most of the
atrocities committed by various insurgents all
over the world today are being carried out
mainly by people who pretend to be Muslims,
yet most of the victims and casualties are
equally Muslims.
“No religion approves of such heinous crimes
against humanity; definitely not Islam or
Christianity, the two to which most Nigerians
belong.
“Religious leaders must intensify their efforts to
send out the real teachings of their religion in
order to counter the diabolical ideology that
motivates the insurgent elements.”
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