Lagos — MANAGING Director of DN Meyer Nigeria Plc, Mr. Bola Olayinka has urged the Federal Government to ensure that its economic reforms address basic needs of Nigerians.

He said on-going reforms would be adjudged successful only if they impact positively on citizens and raise their living standards.

Mr Olayinka made the call recently while fielding questions on Champion Arena at the corporate head office of Champion Newspapers Limited (CNL) in Lagos.

He said the easiest way to assess whether the economy is growing or not is to meet the man on the street and find out how well he fared between the time the policy reforms were put in place and now.

"You need to assess the level of improvement in his purchasing power, level of employment and so on", he stated.

He contended that it was only when an average Nigerian was able to feel impact of the reforms through some level of improvement in his standard of living that one could conclude that the economic reforms of government are working.

Mr Olayinka, noted that many Nigerian businesses are doing badly, a situation which he attributed to unfavourable government policies that have made no impact on the life of an average citizen of the country.

He said what Nigeria needed in the next democratic dispensation was a government that would address problems of the average Nigerian in its totality.

He said though the present administration has put in place some reforms which have been hailed by many, such reforms have not made the desired impact in the life of the average Nigerian.

"We want a government that will see to the upliftment of quality of life of the average man on the street as its basic priority-the totality of man's rights from the day he was born. When he was born, there is need for medical care, education and so on", he stated.

According to him, "such government, when it begins to address man and ask what can make the difference for man then so many things will begin to work on their own and industries will thrive".

He said on-going reforms have only succeeded in ensuring that Nigeria complies with the global economy and move in the same direction with the rest of the world.

According to him, this was because the country has Bretton Woods economists directing our economy while their objective is to ensure that the indices and parameters used by Nigeria are similar to those of global financial institutions.

Meanwhile, Mr Olayinka has called for improved business ties between Nigeria and Liberia in reconstructing the erstwhile war-ravaged country.

He also wants the country's next President to focus on what he called totality of man's problem.

Canvassing serious business links with Liberia, he said, given Nigeria's huge investment in restoring normalcy to the former American colony, it deserved to be involved in the rebuilding process by tapping business opportunities there.

He said federal government is in position to lead such business in Liberia's development adding that this government should demonstrate the workability of its public/private sector partnership programme.

According to Olayinka, by creating such business ties, government would have opened window of opportunities for most Nigerian businesses currently languishing due to lack of such links and unfavourable operating environment.