The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, says the widespread poverty that plagues the country will become a thing of the past if he’s elected president.
Speaking on Monday on Channels Television’s The 2023 Verdict programme, Obi also promised to restructure Nigeria if elected president in the forthcoming February 25 election.
On restructuring, Obi said, “It is not something that I am going to do by presidential fiat. We are going to sit down and talk, go through the process of rule of law in doing that, but I can assure you we need to restructure. We all have factor endowment that will make the country work, those who are against restructuring might even benefit more
The former Anambra State governor said he would pull people out of poverty by focusing on promoting micro, small and medium enterprises, noting that the sector is the greatest productive area in any economy.
“The greatest productive area in any economy I have studied is micro, small, medium enterprises. You can go and take a study in various countries, even first world countries talk less of third world countries. The countries that people use as exemplary today and I will always go for the ones with big numbers, from China to India to Indonesia.
“All of them their economies are driven by this sector. So I believe that you need to study, listen to this section because they will propel what we want to achieve and for me the commitment is to pull people out of poverty that is measurable,” Obi said.
According to him, what government of the past in Nigeria have continuously failed to do is take stock of how things stand when they come in and how they are going when they have entered office.
“In 2012 our unemployment was between 10 and 12 percent, today it’s 33 to 35, our monetary poverty was 55 million, 33 percent, today it is about forty something percent and 95 million. Of course our multidimensional poverty has now increased to 133 million.
“So these are things you need to say if in 2023 a new government comes in, we need to draw a line, this is where we stand and start implementing those thing you think that can start reversing the situation and reducing things like poverty, unemployment, inflation in an organised measurable way,” he said.