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From Magnus Eze, Enugu
Foremost industrialist, Dr. Chike Obidigbo, has stated that Nigeria is bleeding profusely without any hope for urgent healing and redirection.
He noted that President Bola Tinubu has found himself in a pitiable situation due to a number of reasons, regretting that none of the President’s aides has shown capacity to pinpoint the cause or strategies to salvage the ugly condition.
In a statement in Enugu, Obidigbo said Tinubu should realise that he inherited a crop of kleptomaniacs from former President Muhammadu Buhari’s eight years of maladministration and rejig his cabinet.
“Tinubu’s failure to inform Nigeria about the status of the economy he met on ground at his inauguration makes him an accessory to Buhari’s years of the locust,” he stated.
On the minimum wage, Obidigbo said as an employer of labour he has to warn the President against throwing money to problems or pursuing policies of appeasement that could render the economy comatose.
He argued that knee-jerk countermeasures after the hasty reversal of fuel subsidy should be avoided, stressing that the quality of decisions that attended the negotiation of the minimum wage remains suspect.
For him, a sudden increase in minimum wage that has no relationship or bearing on productivity is akin to a mere candle in the wind, stressing that it would, in both short and long term, automatically translate into uncontrollable inflation.
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According to Obidigbo, by accepting an instant massive pay rise without correspondingly discussing the issue of productivity, the government was shooting itself in the foot.
He said the Tinubu administration has unwittingly accepted a measure that would increase inflation in an already depressed economy, adding that the net effect would be devastating in no distant time.
“It is certain that without a corresponding and measurable increase in productivity, sudden wage increases would tilt to only one direction, which includes higher inflation, reduction in the quality and standard of living of the general populace.”
Obidigbo listed measures that could help ameliorate the severe economic stagnation and associated problems caused by labour’s emphasis on wage increase.
He recommended: “Very serious and severe cuts in the cost of governance across board,
“A bold head-on and total war on corruption and corrupt practices, both covert and overt, especially along the corridors of power and among all persons and corporate institutions, as well as countries dealings, directly and indirectly, with public resources.
“Declaration of a state of emergency in the productive sectors of the economy, with stress on stricter control on the infiltration of goods and services produced outside Nigeria.
“Provision of major and necessary factors of production. Serious control over security challenges, and every other factor that could impinge on production.”
