Nigeria economy can still move in the right direction – Stanbic Boss

Sola David-Borha, Chief Executive, Stanbic IBTC Holdings PLC, says the Nigeria economy can still move in the right direction through right policies in spite of its present difficulties.

David-Borha said this in Ibadan on Friday night at a lecture she delivered at the 2016 Alumni lecture held at the University of Ibadan International Conference Centre.

The topic of the lecture was: “The Nigerian Economy: Creating a Part to Sustainable Growth.’’

According to her, moving in the right direction on the economy will entails the utilisation of its greater asset which is not oil but the people of Nigeria.

She said that the key to creating a path to sustainable growth was to have a clear and consistent economic policies or development programme founded on sound market principles.

“We have to execute these plans in a coordinated manner with both monetary and fiscal policies aligned,’’ she said.

She said that the country had all the resources it needed to achieved double digit growth while “its most important resources is the people’’.

According to her, the people should be creative, educated and resilient, they should not be restrained by restrictive polices but be given the opportunities by which they can monetise their talents.

She said that at the macro level, GDP growth rate for Q3 in 2016, was 2.24 per cent.

According to her, the inflation is at 18.3 while the national external reserve has steadily dropped from 28.9billion dollars in January to $23.94billion at the end of Oct.

The Stanbic IBTC boss, who is also an Alumnus of the university, however, identified three critical ingredients for sustainable development and growth.

According to her, the three ingredients are infrastructure, market driven financial markets and security.

“We need to be definite on the actions to take and speedily remedy these issues to be able to move forward, ‘’ she said.

The Vice Chancellor, Idowu Olayinka, in a remark, said he was optimistic about the growth of the economy; “as a nation, things will soon be back on the track’’.

Olayinka thanked the guest lecturer for the lecture and urged the students to see David-Borha as a role model, having broken all barriers to achieve her current feat.

National President of the Alumni, Dr Kemi Emina urged members to ensure that the university maintained its status as the best university in Nigeria and make it the best in the world.