Recession: Senate Will Not Support Fg’s Sale Of Nlng – Sen Ohuabunwa
Following the current recession the country is facing today, different individuals, professionals and politicians have been reacting to the Federal Governments planned sale of critical national assets such as the Nigerian Liquefied and Natural Gas NLNG and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation NNPC.
Last week in the National Assembly, the Senate President was quoted to have suggested that the Federal Government should consider the sale of these critical national assets to quickly get the country out of the ongoing recession. This view was however rejected by several senators including Sen. Mao Ohuabunwa.
At an agric expo held in Abuja, Sen. Mao Ohuabunwa admitted that the country is actually in a very deep recession and one of the fastest ways we can get out of it as a nation is to diversify our economic base from being a mono dependent economy. According to him, “The President and the minister have clearly admitted to the nation of their plans to sell these national assets but this appears to be more of a desperate short term measure. What we need is a holistic approach to the problem because what easily comes to the mind to some of us against this move is that if these assets are sold to get us out of recession today, what are going to sell in the next 10/15 years if we find ourselves in another debilitating predicament”.
If nothing is done urgently we might go into a serious depression, depression is like going into a coma and the probability is like 50/50 chance of surviving it but I’m sure that if we do the right things now we will certainly come out of it.” He further added that what went on in the Senate was not a bill but a debate amongst senators about how best to approach the issue but for me and many of my colleagues we will not support the sale of these assets because there are so many things we can do to get out of these economic quagmire. For me one of the ways we can get out of this situation is private/public partnership, commercialization or agriculture, in fact that is one of the reasons I am here to be part of this AGRICEXPO 2016. Government can explore so many options to get us out of recession apart from selling these assets. What if our previous leaders have sold these assets will there be anything for us to debate about today? We must learn to leave legacies for our children.
He continued, “It was as if I personally envisaged this present state of our economy and sponsored a bill to on commercial agricultural loan which is one of the bills passed in the 8th senate. Nigerians have in the past had difficulties in accessing loans for peasant farming and this has greatly discouraged small scale farming in the past. However with this present recession now the government now needs to empower these small scale farmers and manufacturers in the rural areas, we need to begin to create rich farmers to get our people out of poverty.”