Abuja — A former Chairman of Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Sam Amadi has said that the present administration should redirect its priority in order to ameliorate the current economic hardship.
Amadi stated this at the weekend in Abuja during the FOSAD Lecture Series 01, with the theme: "Historical truths about Igbos in the Diaspora: Facts and Fiction", organised by Forum of South East Academic Doctors (FOSAD).
He said: "Some sectors are more important than others. For example, if you're dealing with acute poverty today, the former Head of State, General Abdulsalam talked about the hardship that cannot be solved with palliatives.
"What that means is that you have to refocus the national budget to address sectors that drive up consumption for most of your people.
"The problem in Nigeria today is not about increasing salaries, people are making mistakes. It's a race to nowhere. If you increase salaries by 50,000 and 20 percent increase in cost of fuel, you're negative, your salary has been reduced actually.
"So, these are the areas the government should focus on, healthcare, education, how to reduce cost of food stuff, provide roads, rail."
Amadi added that there was no justification for depriving Nigerians in Diaspora from voting during the general election.
He said: "I think it's a very inexcusable omission in any case deliberate. I know in the last constitutional reform the proposal was there to allow for diaspora voting and unfortunately at the final count, either from the State or from the National Assembly they deleted it out.
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"But let me say it clearly that during the last regime towards the end, when there was so much economic crisis, the Governor of Central Bank pleaded with the Diaspora people to send in more money.
"If you look at Diasporans remittance it's probably more than 50 percent of foreign investment coming into this country, basically if you look at the inflow in terms of forex, it's mostly from the Diaspora.
"So, I think there is no justification for Diasporans not voting, for three reasons. One, their responsibilities have shown not just in financial transfers, but also in providing ideas, participating in politics. You see the results in the last election on both PDP, APC and Labour Party, they were very strong."
On his part, FOSAD Secretary General, Dr. Uzor Ngoladi said the organisation is interested in not only Igbos at home but Igbos in the Diaspora.
According to him, "we are engaged in most activities to ensure that Igbos industriousness, that entrepreneurship is brought back home to the land of your birth.
"We have a whole lot of projects going on, we have some of us in the diaspora, the medical practitioners. You know there's no hospital in the United States that you'll not see an Igbo man, we have them build hospitals especially in Anambra State, we've built in Imo State, working together, synergizing with people at home to make sure that industries are established."
