Mr. Peter Obi, the Labour Party's (LP) presidential candidate for the general elections of 2023, yesterday compared Nigeria's oil subsidies to organised crime and pledged to eradicate them if elected.
At the Private Sector Economic Forum for the 2023 Presidential Election, hosted by the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, or LCCI, Obi made this statement yesterday in Lagos.
When he returned to office, he also pledged to swiftly halt the dollarization of Nigeria's internal economy.
Obi said: “I have said it before, 50 per cent of the subsidy is corruption. That will be dealt with decisively. Subsidy will be removed where absolutely necessary.
“Second, we will start aggressively and immediately anywhere we can, local refining, especially modular refinery, driven by private sector not government. We are going to support and ensure that the refineries are put in as quickly as possible.
“So, I assure you subsidy will not be there. Subsidy is one of the things that is driving inflation because you have huge sum of money being thrown into the system to deal with deficit budgeting to pay for the subsidy.
“As I have said before, we have to stop the dollarisation of our economy, especially domestic economy. Under my watch, if you must operate you must charge in naira, except you are operating in the international space.”
On security, he said: “If we deal with the issue of insecurity and farmers are able to go back to the farms, you remove subsidy and tackle corruption, the inflation will go down.
“When we come into government in 2023, one thing that we must aggressively and decisively deal with is the issue of security. We will deal with it as quickly as possible. And I can assure you that will be the first thing on my desk.
“We need to overhaul the entire security architecture and ensure that it is out in place aggressively, including having multi-level policing, federal, state and community policing.”
Debt is a part of development, according to Obi, who added that borrowing is acceptable as long as it is done for investment purposes. However, it must be used to investment rather than personal use.
He claims that although though several nations, including Japan and Singapore, have debts that are more than 100% of their GDP, their economies are still expanding because they borrow money for investments.
His words: “Under my watch, we will borrow for investment not consumption and ensure fiscal discipline.”
Also speaking in tackling corruption, Obi said he will live by example.
“If the principal and members of his family are not corrupt, the issue of corruption will be reduced by 70 per cent,” he stated.