Obasanjo stated this in Lagos yesterday at the 40th Annual General Meeting of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) with the theme: ‘Strategies for Accelerated Development of the Manufacturing Sector: the Way Forward’. “It remained worrisome if poverty level in the country in 2007 was put at 38 percent and today it is 69 percent and yet government claims that GDP growth is increasing, then definitely, something is wrong somewhere,” he said.
Again,he said the ease of doing business report recently released by the World Bank ranked Nigeria 133 out of 193 countries where it is most difficult to conduct business, ditto for the Transparency International which stated that 142 countries are better than Nigeria in the area of corruption. The former President lamented regretted that the vision of the country to attain its Vision 20-2020 objective will be a hopeless and unfulfilled dream without the development of the manufacturing sector.
Obasanjo, who was the guest speaker disclosed that since independence, the country’s manufacturing policies have not been consistent and are disjointed as a result of lack of vision and sustained vision,as a result of the negative disposition of civil servants towards private sector operators.
In this regard, he said, government must do all it can to harness and develop the potentials inherent in the Agriculture, Infrastructure, finance, marketing and distribution, exports, tourism and minning sectors ,if the country was to realize the needed development for the growth of the manufacturing sector.
Ealier in his opening remarks, the President of MAN, Mr. Kola Jamodu, said the association in its efforts aimed at bridging the information gap between the Federal Government and the association as well as making robust case for a more conducive manufacturing environment, said the association articulated a blueprint for the acceleration of manufacturing in Nigeria.
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