Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, says the Nigerian economy can only receive a boost with an improved electricity supply and good leadership in the country.
Obi, a former governor of Anambra, said this in Owerri, weekend, at the Jamie Pajoel International (JPI) annual leadership conference.
According to him, the nation’s economy cannot advance with the current state of poor power supply.
“If Nigeria can generate 20,000 megawatts of power, the country’s economy will transform within a short period of time. Nigeria has borrowed $500m in the last 20 years, if Nigeria had spent five percent of the money borrowed so far on entrepreneur and power generation, the country will compete with advanced countries,” he said.
The presidential candidate noted that 100 million Nigerians were currently living in poverty amidst the nation’s huge resources.
He said Nigeria had all it took to be a great nation, adding that the country’s greatest setback was bad leadership, corruption and poor policy implications.
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“Our leaders have continued to talk about poor revenue, today we have 100 million Nigerians living in poverty and yet our leaders have not found a solution to our problems,” he said.
Obi, however, advised Nigerians to remain steadfast and always be ready to contribute meaningfully to the growth of the nation.
Pat Utomi, a political economist, also speaking, said vision and ideas were the key factors to drive any economy. Utomi added that any leadership without a clear vision was bound to fail, stressing that Nigerian leaders failed the country due to poor vision and ideas.
According to him, a 21-century leader must be familiar with the system and understand properly the dynamics of leadership.
Linus Okorie, chief executive officer, CONE Leadership Centre, blamed Nigeria’s poor economic situation on the maladministration of leaders.
Jamie Pajoel, convener of the conference and founder Legislative Leadership Education, said the conference was aimed at incorporating case studies, redefining leadership, governance, and bringing recommendations that would help sustain the system.
He said the 2022 annual JPI leadership conference would also incorporate people of different professions across the nation and some international delegates.
Pajoel stated that internal limitation was a big factor that could work against the success of any nation or individual.
“Internal limitation is very dangerous, as a nation or individual, we need to learn how to manipulate limitations to address counter-productive syndrome.
“We must be ready to develop ourselves, our capital is the relationship we keep, we must be ready to utilise it.
“Generational curse is not spiritual but the human factor, what we are facing today in Nigeria is the actions of our past leaders, we must be ready to confront the situation in our time,” he said.
He attributed negative interpretation as the major cause of setbacks saying “negative interpretation helps the mind to work against you.
“Don’t allow fear to stop you, be positive-minded and confront every situation with faith,” he advised.
