The Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG) has said the last 24 years have been a very challenging period in the nation’s history, leaving Nigeria as a country in dire need of restructuring.
The NESG is therefore seeking the collaboration of the National Assembly to put in place proper legislations that will remove the bottlenecks hindering the growth of the Nigerian economy and sustain growth and development.
The call came just as the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Benjamin Kalu assured that the House and indeed the National Assembly would priotise laws that will impact positively on the nation’s socioeconomic life.
Team Leader of the National Assembly Business Environment Roundtable of the Nigeria Economic Summit Group Tayo Adeloju who spoke while on a visit to the Deputy Speaker said the last eight years had particularly left Nigerians with a country that is in dire need of restructuring, adding that the 10th Assembly has a crucial role to play in the revival of the nation’s economy.
Adeloju said “As you settle down to work for the next four years, we must push laws that allow microeconomics stability to happen, we must push laws that put binding constraints on investments coming to stay in Nigeria.
“We must allow laws that allow for inclusive participation in our economy and economic system and we must remove the old legislative legal gridlock that has made major sectors of our economy,-transportation, infrastructure, power etc not reach their height.”
While assuring the cooperation of the NESG with the National Assembly in fashioning out appropriate legislations, he said “You have our pledge for support and commitment to work with you. We have about 3000 volunteers that are willing and available to work with your committee chair and yourself.
“Partnership is what we seek because when we work together, we work faster. There are very difficult issues to debate if Nigeria must move forward. Call us anytime and there will be a cream of Nigerians ready to work to deliver the country of our dreams”.
He explained that when the NESG was established, it envisaged an economic environment which was open, competitive, sustainable and inclusive. In the last 24 years, the movement towards an open, sustainable and inclusive economy has been riddled with difficulties.
He said “Even in the period of high growth in the last 24 years, we struggle with making it inclusive and we have had jobless growth. Unfortunately, in the last eight years, we have been through two recessions, one pandemic that has left our country with 133 million poor people and an economy that desperately needs restructuring.
“We envisaged some of these challenges in 2015 and so we at a summit unanimously agreed that the survival of the economy should be built around legislation. So from 2016 to date, the NESG has convened specific legislative sessions to give impetus to the fact that there is no economic growth without legislative involvement.
“We think that this 10th Assembly can play basketball crucial role in the growth of the economy.”
In his response, the Deputy Speaker said the kind of growth envisaged by the NESG cannot be achieved if the bills and motions in the National Assembly are not tailored towards that. He said the 10th Assembly would ensure that they are not judged only by the number of bills they pass, but also by the social impact of such bills.
He said “You have decided to come at the formative stage of the 10th Assembly so that whatever comes out is going to reflect on the legislative instrument we are going to use.
“The 10th Assembly is currently cooking it’s legislative agenda and one of the key issues we will be priorising is the issue of economy of the nation. I saw you highlighting the issue of Executive/Legislative relationship and the key policy issues and bills that should take the centre stage.
“The thinking is that the core thinking of the current administration is national objectives and since we have studied the key objective of the administration, it is our minndset that though we are three arms of government, we are one government.
“So, if the national objective is about improving the nation and it’s people, all we have to do in partnership with strategic stakeholders is to push out legislative interventions in motions and bills that will help them get that done.
“The 10th Assembly will not only be interested in bills and motions. We will be looking at transformational bills that will impact positively on the business environment so that it become better than we met it, bills that will enable the Nigeria Commonwealth which we are committed to.
“Bills that will clearly stated the mischief in our nation economically and how that will be cured by the bills and not just having so many bills without any social economic impact. So, our bills will be impact driven.
“We will make sure that we are rated not by the number of bills, but the social impact that those bills make in the country. You are seeking to do well in our ease of doing business and increase in our global percentage in competitiveness and improve the ranking in our development index. We cannot achieve this if the bills are ot tailored with it in mind.”