The Law and Development Summit: Panellists proffer solutions to Nigeria’s Economic Crisis
The Businessday Virtual Law and Development summit in partnership with Olisa Agbakoba Legal themed, “How the law can be a tool for revenue generation and job creation” held on 26th – 27th November 2020.
The opening session of the event began virtually on the 26th of November 2020 and in attendance were dignitaries and thought leaders including Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, Hon.
Minister of Finance, Budget and
National Planning; Olamilekan Adegbite, Hon. Minister of
Mines and Steel Development;
Frank Aigbogun, Publisher,
Businessday Media Ltd; Olisa
Agbakoba SAN, Senior Partner, Olisa Agbakoba Legal; Mustafa Chike-obi, Chairman, Fidelity
Bank Plc; Alhaji Babagani Alkali,
representing Otunba Adeniyi Adebayo, Hon. Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment. Nigerian Minister of Mines and
Steel Development; and Juliet
Ibekaku-nwagwu, representing the Hon. Min of Justice and
Attorney-general of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, SAN and
Ambassador Adeyemi Dipeolu, on behalf of Vice President, Prof.
Yemi Osinbajo, SAN.
In his opening remarks, Frank
Aigbogun, Publisher, BusinessDay stated that he hoped that
in the course of the discussions, it would become apparent that focusing on developing laws and policies that engender the creation of millions of jobs for people while driving government revenue growth are sine qua non for Nigeria.
Following this, Mustafa Chike-obi, Chair of the Opening Session noted, in his opening remarks, that the problem needed to be diagnosed first before solutions could be found, and hoped that at the end of the summit, there will be concrete recommendations. He further stated that the economy of Nigeria would not survive the booms and busts that are happening more frequently than they did in the past five years. He implored for an honest discussion, to allow for useful outcomes.
Olamilekan Adegbite emphasizing the importance of data pointed out that a national geodata centre had been established where people could access critical information for ease of business. Regarding the issue of whether the government should be heavily involved in initiatives that could be headed by the private sector, Adegbite stated that most of the initiatives involved some form of partnership with private sector players; government merely served as a facilitator, and the private sector had free reign to operate within its desired space, subject to
protocol.
Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed gave an in-depth overview of the
Strategic Revenue Growth Initiative (SRGI), which was launched
in 2019. In her summary she
mentioned that the SRGI was
built on three thematic areas; the first was achieving sustainability in revenue generation, the second, identifying new and enforcing existing revenue streams
and third achieving cohesion of
our people and tools.
Ambassador Adeyemi Dipeolu, Economic Advisor to the President delivered a presentation on behalf of Vice President,
Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, SAN on the economic sustainability plan. He began by saying that recession was a global one and that it was not as bad as it in Nigeria as it was elsewhere, but this was not to be misconstrued as consolation. He explained that the
President set up the economic stability committee to draw up a plan and that this plan was drawn up with five aims in mind. First was the desire to stimulate the economy, the second was job creation, the third was enabling local production, the fourth was using proven approaches, and the fifth was removing critical constraints. He concluded by saying that for successful implementation it would be important to uphold values, which are the most costless ways of undertaking transactions and that without them implementation would fail, because more time and resources would be spent in getting people to fulfil their obligations. After which, the event was declared open.
In the discussion session,
Chike-obi, Dipeolu, Ibekaku
Nwagwu and Aigbogun were
joined by Senator Babajide
Omowore, SSA to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate) to assess pertinent issues affecting the economy. Of particular note was Mr ChikeObi’s action plan concerning the enabling some of the propositions raised by the panellist. He stated,
“A lot of these conferences lead to non-actionable recommendations, so I will give a few actionable recommendations. First, there should be a law that
states that the CBN should not
sell any equity at more than 3% of what they paid for it. This is a quick way of making sure the states are not short-changed; secondly, we should look at laws that privatise certain parts of the
federal government, for example,
there is no reason why prisons and airports cannot be privatised. These would create efficiencies
and reduce expenses.”
The Law and Development
Summit is a virtual conference focusing on developing legislative proposals and policies that can generate 10 million jobs and significantly drive government
revenue growth over the next
four years (2021-25).