1st May, 2019
A professor of political economy, Pat Utomi, says Nigeria can only attain its much desired growth and development if it joins the comity of producing nations in the world.
Utomi made the submission on Wednesday in Ibadan, during the seventh edition of a Capacity Development Summit, held at Ibadan Business School.
The summit entitled `Excelling in Emerging Economies’ was convened by Pastor Idowu Ogedengbe, a Resident Pastor of House on the Rock, Harvest House, Ibadan.
Utomi warned that pragmatic efforts must be taken to ensure Nigeria becomes a producing nation, saying a nation that does not produce is dead.
“It’s all about production, output. We are still relying too much on crude oil prices to determine the direction of our economy and that is not good.
“There is very little we can do to control the direction of pricing of crude oil,’’ he said.
He said that the nation was ahead of China in manufacturing 40 years ago, but the reverse was the case now, saying the country had today, remained a consuming nation, producing only crude oil.
According to him, “We live in trying times, very difficult times, and we must be change agents. If we don’t have impacts, if we don’t change the society, a couple of things will be lost.’’
Utomi expressed deep-seated fear that there might be no Nigeria on any map very soon, decrying the level of inequalities in the country.
He recalled that in the 1960s, there were more local governments in Southern Nigeria than Northern Nigeria, when regional system of government was in operation.
The don said it was the military regime that increased the local governments to 774, out of which over 500 of them are in Northern Nigeria.