…As 28th Nigerian Economic Summit (NES#28) holds November 14-15, 2022, The Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) has cancelled its scheduled presidential debate for the 2023 polls in its place, the Group would be organising a town hall meeting for the candidates. The debate was billed to hold next week in Abuja as part of the
…As 28th Nigerian Economic Summit (NES#28) holds November 14-15, 2022,
The Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) has cancelled its scheduled presidential debate for the 2023 polls in its place, the Group would be organising a town hall meeting for the candidates.
The debate was billed to hold next week in Abuja as part of the National Economic Summit (NES#28) was shelved due to what NESG described as “unfavorable climate”.
NESG chairman, Asue Ighodalo who confirmed the development on Thursday at a pre-summit briefing said there must be a minimum level of issues that presidential aspirants must sign on to.
According to him, the NESG had “hoped there was going to be a debate, but the prevailing climate wasn’t comfortable for it anymore.
“However we are planning a town hall arrangement. It’s fundamental each aspirant tells Nigerians how he intends to tackle each sector of the economy.
“The public can then take them up copiously sector by sector. There will be no aspirant that will say I don’t know. I promise this,” he said.
He added; “in five years, Nigeria can become a leading industrializing and reforming nation in Africa that focuses on building its State capacity and capabilities.” adding that within that period, Nigeria ;“can break free from decades-long political, policy, legislative and regulatory binding constraints.” he stressed.
Also speaking at the occasion, Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Ikanade Agba said the 28th Nigerian Economic Summit (NES#28), which is scheduled to hold from November 14-15, 2022, will focus on the policies and strategies encapsulated in the National Development Plan (NDP), 2021-2025 and Nigeria Agenda 20250.
He said the theme: “2023 and Beyond: Priorities for Shared Prosperity,” was carefully chosen to discuss priorities for post 2023 with attention on the transformation of the country into an Upper-Middle Income Developing Country with a Per Capita Income (PCI) of US$33,000, NDP, 2021-2025.
Agba said the summit has a vision to unlock the potentials of the country in all sectors of the economy for a sustainable, holistic and inclusive national development.
His words ;”the Plan is meant to drastically bring poverty rate to 0.6% and unemployment rate to 6.3%, while transiting the economy to the highest per capita GDP in the Group of Upper-middle Income Economies.
“As we are all aware, sustained growth is key to the eradication of poverty. During the implementation period of the perspective Plan, efforts will be made to promote rapid and sustained economic growth of 7 percent on average. Growth will be sustained by maintaining macroeconomic stability, ensuring equity, promoting productivity and competitiveness, ensuring low population growth, as well as girl child education and women participation in the labour force.
“The private sector will be the engine of growth of the economy, while the government will implement policies and regulations that promote favourable business environment to achieve high rate of investment and savings. The investment is necessary to raise the economy to a GDP of US$11.7 trillion by 2050, while structural barriers that constrain the vulnerable segment of the society from realizing its potential are addressed.
“In this context, discussions at NES #28 will be dimensioned into four sub-themes; namely, Delivering Macroeconomic Stability for Shared Prosperity; Investing in the Nigeria Future; Unlocking the Binding Constraints to Execution; and Reframing the Agenda for Transformational Leadership.”
According to him, the summit will among others, identify critical factors for effective implementation of the national development plan for sustained economic development; set an economic policy agenda for accelerated economic growth, underpinned by sustainable and inclusive development; deliberate an actionable framework for transformative political leadership and effective governance that builds the Nigerian state’s capacity to deliver dividends of democracy and build consensus on the imperatives for transforming Nigeria’s human capital into national productive and innovative capacity that creates a secure collective future of prosperity for all.
He added that the summit will also identify pragmatic initiatives to challenge the leadership at the subnational levels, and adopting a “Bottom-Up” approach to subnational competitiveness that contributes to national economic growth and development; and articulate the framework within which economic priorities for Nigeria in 2023 and beyond are debated, discussed and agreed upon.
Agba recalled that the federal government represented by the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning in close collaboration with the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) has been organising the Annual Nigerian Economic Summit in the past 27 years. “This partnership has endured and blossomed, making the relationship mutually beneficial. It has become a model for Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) and provides a credible and widely recognized platform for top policymakers and corporate leaders to interact and exchange ideas on contemporary socio-economic challenges with a view to proffering enduring solutions for policy action.
“It also brings together development partners, civil society organisations, and representatives of the academia and provides participants the unique opportunity for consensus building whilst evolving a common strategy and policy framework for addressing issues constraining our national development. The annual Economic Summits have helped to shape many of the reform policies that have underpinned our development aspiration and economic growth strategy over the past twenty-seven years, NES#27.”
The Minister explained that the theme of Last year’s summit, NES#27 was ‘’Securing Our Future: The Fierce Urgency of Now,’’ which provided a veritable platform for stakeholders to engage in candid and frank discussion and agreed on the need for government to take tough decision needed to reverse poor economic trends occasioned by the Covid-19 pandemic and steer the course towards a secured future of high growth and socio-economic development. “NES#27 also provided a timely opportunity for a national economic review and created consensus amongst all Nigerians on the need for us to actively prioritise the pursuit of economic growth that can sustainably create jobs, lift millions out of poverty and enable Nigeria realise its economic potentials on the global stage. This indeed helped in no small measure in focusing the objective of the recently launched National Development Plan (NDP), 2021-2025,” he stressed.
The Minister recalled that, on Thursday, July 7, 2022, he inaugurated the Joint Planning Committee (JPC) for the 28th Summit that produced five sub-committees, namely: Technical; Fundraising and Mobilization; Media & Publicity; Editorial and Event Planning designed to ensure effective delivery of the Summit.
“The JPC and the Sub-committees have worked round the clock resulting in the Press Conference we are witnessing here today. To usher in the NES#28, there have been several pre-summit events among which are National Economic Dialogue on: Entrepreneurship Policies; Financial Inclusion: What worked, What Didn’t, Which Way Forward; Critical Challenges confronting the Nigerian Economy; Critical Tax Reforms for Shared Prosperity; Repositioning Public Governance in Nigeria for Global Competitiveness; Attracting Foreign Direct Investment and Sustainable Development; National Economic Dialogue for Youths on Economic Growth & Stability; Nigeria’s Human Capital Potentials; and Getting Our Institutions Right. The pre-summit events were held to prepare ground for critical discourse on the economy during the summit.”
Agba said that the Summit would be anchored on plenary, CEO roundtable, briefings, insight sessions, debates, workshops, dialogues, co-creation labs and high-level panel discussions. “Stakeholders would highlight the imperatives of Economic Sustainability, Inclusive Growth, Execution, Political Economy and Visionary Leadership as drivers of sustainable socio-economic development,” he said.
