A renowned Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Barr. Ngozi Olehi says that high inflation, foreign exchange rate volatility, low productivity, weak governance, and poor infrastructure are the most formidable forces against the Nigeria’s economic recovery, growth prospects and economic stability.
In an interview in Owerri, Imo State, Barr. Olehi, SAN said the country faces a complex web of interconnected challenges which defy current fragile approaches that lack sincerity of purpose and sabotaged by public officers adding that the consequences of the plundering of Nigeria could be very devastating as latest 2025 World Bank update on Nigeria’s economy show that eleven persons sink into extreme poverty every minute.
He said that to minimize the harshness and pains of ongoing economic reforms and save the people from the unprecedented hardship across the country, the Federal Government must address structural issues, including inefficiency, insecurity, and high unemployment, while ensuring inclusive and sustainable economic policies.
The legal practitioner stated that the macroeconomic environment is still hostile to and significantly limits industrialization without which economic stability is virtually impossible and lamented that policy inconsistency and lack of access to finance, among other things, add to absence of long-term reforms that could improve business environment, develop human capital and strengthen institutions.
Barr. Olehi, SAN regretted that grave insecurity plaguing everywhere in Nigeria terribly disrupts economic activities which in turn fuels acute hunger, unemployment and multidimensional poverty pointing out that insecurity and economic development are inextricably linked and mutually reinforcing with terrible outcomes that lead to diverting public resources from development to security spending.
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria emphasized that economic progress fosters stability by improving livelihoods, governance, and service delivery, and can also help absorb shocks that might otherwise lead to conflict adding that the nexus between security and development call for strategic approaches that must terminate insecurity for the prosperity of the people to manifest and flourish.
Barr. Olehi, SAN stated: “it is painful that Nigerians are groaning under penury and hardship as they watch the economy, which ordinarily has the remarkable potential to sustain their affluence, pine away, because of avoidable challenges, corruption and incompetence.”
