NBS Report: Stop Borrowing For Consumption, Obi Tells Buhari

In an interview on Channels TV on Sunday, Obi claimed that the Federal Government had been borrowing money and spending it on consumption which does not impact Nigerians positively.

He made this known while reacting to the recent National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) report which stated that the country’s economy has recorded a five percent growth to Gross Domestic Product.

The PDP chieftain asked the government to stop celebrating the NBS report, rather it should celebrate the growth that will pull Nigerians out of poverty.

The former governor added that such growth should make the people have disposable income and be able to feed themselves.

Obi said, “The type of growth I want to see is the one that will pull Nigerians out of poverty by making the people have disposable income and be able to feed themselves.

“We need the type of growth that will educate our children, provide primary health care for all the communities. We don’t need growth based on speculations that government officials are celebrating all over the place.

“The biggest engine for economic growth is the micro, small, medium enterprises. That is the practice all over the World.

“That engine today is not being supported in Nigeria. Nigeria has a total of 40 million SMEs but there is not a properly articulated fiscal and monetary policy to support the critical sector.

“The entire loan to the private sector on Nigeria today is about N30trn. Less than N1.5trn is going to the SMEs. This is less than five per cent of the entire loan. This means Nigeria is not supporting its engine that can enhance the nation’s economic growth.

“The SMEs are the biggest employer of labour in many advanced countries of the world. We need fiscal monetary policies that would invest in this engine of growth in order to create jobs.”