Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s Presidential Candidate, stated on Thursday in Abuja that the party will change Nigeria’s economy from consumption to production.
Mr. Obi made the announcement during the Labour Party and Coalition for Peter Obi Leadership Summit.
The summit’s topic was “Youths, Governance, and a New Nigeria.”
He stated that he plans to diversify the economy by utilizing potential and natural resources from around the country.
He went on to say that he would construct an authentic country where citizens would be proud of their patriotism.
“We have a country called Nigeria, but we don’t have Nigerians.
“What we want to do is to create Nigerians and the only way to create Nigerians is to make people to have hope in Nigeria.
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“Nigeria is a great country. God created this country and gave it everything to make it great. The only thing that is lacking is a simple thing called leadership.
“That is what Datti and I intend to provide.’’ he said.
He explained how he plans to harness regional potentials for national economic development.
“When I say we are not a producing country but a consuming one, it is true.
“For instance, Borno is a state situated on 70.9 square kilometres of land and today we are talking about Sambisa Forest. It is an asset for Nigeria.
“This is because Sambisa Forest is twice the size of Israel and it is an agricultural land that can give us food.
“If you go all over the northern part of Nigeria you will see that Nigeria is blessed with land that can give us food.
“We are waiting to share money from oil. How much do we generate from oil?
“Our total export as a country is 30 billion dollars including oil, yet we live in a country of over 923,000 square metre, almost one million square kilometres,’’ he said.
Mr Obi said that Nigeria, when compared with Vietnam that lives on 331square kilometres of land and has a population of 100 million was lagging behind.
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This, he said, was because Vietnam’s export is 312 billion dollars yet Nigeria could not do 10 per cent of Vietnam’s exports with a vast land and a population of 200 million people.
He added that Niger is two-and-half the size of The Netherlands, yet the state could not feed itself or the country whereas The Netherlands’ agricultural export for 2021 was 120 billion dollars.
“We cannot continue to live like this; our position is simple, all Datti and I want to do is to move this country from consumption to production,’’ he stressed.
