By ODEYA OGBETUO
A renowned businessman in the Niger Delta region, Chief George Owarieta has urged the Federal Government of Nigeria to alleviate poverty and arrest the downward trend of the economy to save the country from total collapse.
Chief Owarieta who made this call in a chat with newsmen in Warri during the Institute of Chartered Mediators and Conciliators (ICMC) refresher training programme said that Nigeria is referred as ‘Power of Africa’ but her social indicators could not be compared with those of South Africa, Zambia, Central Africa Republic, Mauritius, Botswana and Cote de’ Voire as seventy percent of Nigerians live on less than $1 (One Dollar) per day, stressing that mortality rate is 77 per 1000 live births with maternal mortality of 704 per 100,000 and ten percent of all maternal death in the world take place in Nigeria.
Chief Owarieta who is the chairman of ICMC Warri Branch, Delta State stated that there was need for the Nigerian Government to create an enabling environment for business to thrive as Nigeria has been branded as a country where access to power generation is restricted to private ownership of generating plants, adding that insecurity and loss of property and lives through armed robbery, kidnapping, murder, assassination, bandits, Fulani herdsmen attack, yahoo plus, swindling of foreign investors have been a big challenge to the country.
He noted that the Nigerian government has a big role to play in ensuring that security and infrastructure are put in place to encourage economic growth, performance and foreign investment.
Rotarian Owarieta stressed that eradication of poverty should continue to be function of ensuring that the Government is in prime position to provide quality social services, health, education, environmental issues, adding that other key priority infrastructure such as water and power are those basic infrastructure that the man on the street must have access to and which we all know have eluded the average man on the street for many years.
He called for collective efforts to make sure that the private sector should be dynamic as an engine of growth of the economy while the government focuses on those social services.
“Buhari promised to lift over ten (10) million Nigerians out of poverty in his 2015 election campaign but by 2022 more than 30 million Nigerians were plunged into deeper poverty. We are expecting his administration to rescue Nigerians that are dying of hunger and restore hope to Nigerians that are in despair. He should try to resolve the impasse between the Federal Government and ASUU for academic resumption in our federal universities” he added.
Chief Owarieta stated that Nigerians are currently facing a lot of challenges and our leaders appear not be capable of solving these problems, adding that we now have a country where 130 million people now live in poverty with 60 percent unemployment, only 40 percent working with over 15 million people out of school.
“Nigeria is a wonderful country that borrows money (Billion of dollars) from China and spends it in Niger Republic and leaves debt for Nigeria’s future generation. It is funny that in Nigeria an innocent citizen will drive 20 kilometers without meeting not less than 10 check points but bandits will drive 100 kilometers with 300 victims and freely settle in their hideouts to demand hundreds of millions as ransom to release the victims”.
“The problems of this country have overwhelmed the APC led Federal Government. The Government has six months to correct some of the lapses visible in this government before the end of this administration in May 2023” he added.
Chief Owarieta, the Ogbodu of Agbon Kingdom noted that Government powers must be exercised for the interest and benefit of the people through who government derives its authority, but in Nigeria we are having the opposite and this must not continue so that we don’t have a major crisis that could lead to the disintegration of Nigeria.
