The 2023 Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, said Tinubu’s proposed military intervention in Niger Republic following the recent military coup is unnecessary.
During his appearance on Arise’s Morning Show today, Obi argued that Nigeria cannot afford to grapple with economic challenges domestically while simultaneously planning military action in a neighboring country due to a military takeover.
Also, Obi emphasized the importance of addressing the issue of illegal mining of natural and mineral resources, which continues to devastate Nigeria on a daily basis.
He suggested that by waging a concerted effort against this problem, the Nigerian economy could flourish, leading to a significant reduction in the need for borrowing, as Nigerian exports would increase.
“We have war at home. You cannot go to war externally when you have war at home. If you look at our budget this year, our budget is 21.5 trillion. Our expected revenue is about 10 trillion, which means we have a deficit of 53.5%, which is about 11.5 trillion.
READ ALSO: Go To UNN, They’ll Hand Over My Transcript To You — Peter Obi
“That’s what you are lacking. That is all. I read from the President’s National Security Advisor that we are losing 400,000 barrels of crude oil every day. If that is true, if you multiply by our benchmark, which is below the present today, that’s about 30 million dollars a day. If you put 30 million dollars in one year, it will be about 10.9 or 11 trillion dollars. 11 billion dollars—about that, about 11 billion dollars.
“If you say you use, we just said it’s 1,000 trillion dollars, but let’s use 900. If you use 1,000, you have 11 trillion. 900, which I know is not all your money, but what does it show? So, you have a deficit of 11.5, and you are losing about 11 trillion somewhere. And then what it then shows is that if you put this, consider the illegal mining of our minerals all over the country by foreigners and locals alike, consider all the revenue leakages that is coming, what it then results in, is that if you fight this war internally and be able to deal with this, you generate a revenue of between 20 and 25 trillion.
“By the time you decide to even borrow additional 10 to make it 25 trillion, which is where our budget should have been today, I can tell you, not only have you reduced your borrowing to 30%, but all those things are achievable. So, for me, the only war Nigeria needs now is war on insecurity and war in economy. And I’m going to deploy everything that is available to ensure that we win it. Because that is the core of our problem.
“If you today secure Nigeria, deal with issue of all revenue leakages, bring a bit of stability in it, I can tell you, you’ll stabilize your currency. Another thing is that you’ll be able to export more, earn more revenue, that will be able to increase your reserve and have availability. You’ll be able to have Nigerians all over the world bringing in their own investment and you’ll be able to attract foreign investors. You’re going around trying to bring in foreign investors in an insecure, war-torn area.
“That’s just to tell you, if you look at what I’ve been saying from beginning, moving it from consumption to production, this is the way you start it. Government will tell you today, we are short of revenue, our revenues are not this. if you do the right things, you will generate additional revenue.
“People will say to me, you said you were going to put 1 trillion to 1,000 companies, 1 million to 4 million SMEs, it will be 4 trillion, how are you going to do it? I’ve just shown you that if you’re able to manage the leakages within your own system, you’ll be able to generate more income. And your borrowing will help to ensure that you allocate up to 50-60% of your annual budget to area of production. And if you do that for a period of 1, 2, 3 years, you will see that you generate more revenue. The budgeting today both for federal and state of Nigeria should be a combined budgeting of not less than 50 trillion, which is just about 15 billion dollars annually,” Peter Obi said.