Lokoja
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has appealed to Nigerians to take seriously and share in its vision of diversification of national economy from oil to Agriculture and Manufacturing sectors.
Mr Godwin Emefiele, Governor, CBN, disclosed this at a one-day interactive session with stakeholders from the Organised Labour and Media on the 5-year policy Trust of Central Bank of Nigeria (2019 to 2024) on Saturday in Lokoja.
Emefiele, represented by Osita Nwanisobi, Acting Director, Corporate Communications, CBN, who spoke on “Understanding the CBN Vision, Mission, Mandate and its Recent Policies” as well as the “Five-Year Policy Thrust of CBN Governor (2019-2024) said the oil sector was too fragile to depend on.
He said that the CBN, saddled with the responsibility of managing the nation’s resources, the value of the Naira and ensuring financial stability among others had evolved various intervention strategies to diversify the economy.
The acting Director of Corporate Communications said the apex bank envisioned a non-sectional, apolitical and people-centred Central Bank in its quest to build a strong economy and create jobs on massive scale.
As part of the bank’s policy thrust, he said, it desired the economy to grow by double digits, reduce inflation to single digit, address youth unemployment, build a rubust payment system and increases flow of resources into critical sectors.
Against this backdrop, Nwanisobi held that there was the dire need for diversification saying it was not too late adding that CBN had adopted value chain financing to finance Agriculture.
He said that as part of lessons learnt from the #EndSARS Protests, there was need to enhance access to finance by small-holder farmers through the National Collateral Register where jewels and vehicle particulars could be used as collateral for loans.
Emefiele stressed the CBN was intervening in 37 areas before the global financial crisis saying, “We need to work now, it is about time. Though seemingly late but we can start now. Oil will never ever get us to sustainable growth.
Speaking in same vein, Mr Issa Aremu, General Secretary, National Union of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria (NVTGTWN) commended the 11th Governor of the CBN, Mr Godwin Emefiele for his policy thrust culminating in the interventions.
“We must know where we are coming from, our present position and where we are going”, he said and urged other agencies like SMEDAN, PENCOM and SMEs to take a cue from CBN and bring their visions and missions to public domain for evaluation.
He said that the nation should as much as possible “produce what we consume and consume what we produce. Even the oil sector we talk about, Oil is not a curse it could be a blessing if we diversify from exporting crude to refining crude.
There was also in Nigeria petrochemicals and they were about 114 derivatives from crude oil. Not just petrol. As it is now, we are the only OPEC country without a functional refinery”, he said.
Also speakibg, Mr Onu Edoka, chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress in the state charged the CBN to increase its monitoring of commercial banks operations alleging that fraudulent activities were rampant in them.
Edoka who lost about N1.7 million to fraudsters who tampered with his bank details recently in Lokoja urged the CBN to wield the big stick against commercial banks who collude with fraudsters to defraud their customers.
Mr Ahmed Sule, Branch Controller of CBN in the state in his opening address gave a brief history of Lokoja and assured that the state was safe in view of the huge investment in security by the state government.
