Nigeria’s Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun, has assured the international communities that even if Nigeria is going through challenges, it has local remedy to cure it.
The minister, who addressed the Spring Meetings of the IMF/World Bank in the Washington DC, emphasized: “Nigeria is not sick and even if we are, we have our own local remedy.”
Other speakers at the event included, IMF Deputy Managing Director Mitsuhiro Furusawa and Rwanda Finance Minister Claver Gatete.
The Minister said that Nigeria is adapting to its new realities and that government is implementing fiscal policies to steer the country back on track for stable growth with a diversified economy.
“These policies and investment should enable Nigeria to show positive growth in 2017.”
Adeosun emphasized that what the country is passing through is surmountable , adding that government is already applying a cocktail of measures to address the problem.
“We have resolved to build resilience into the country’s economy to hedge against future oil shocks. This is because dependence on oil brings about vulnerability and laziness. So we are doing a combination of things to diversify our economy, with revenue mobilization to enable sufficient investment in developing the non-oil sectors.
“We have great opportunities to reset the Nigerian economy and ensure that as we go forward, growth will be in a sustainable manner so that we won’t be vulnerable to oil price fluctuations, and with a truly diversified economy, we would have enabled opportunities for wealth creation that would have trickled down to every Nigerian.
“The compelling business case in Nigeria is that the fundamentals remain very strong, a teaming, young growing population, rich in resources and with a government determined to finally get it right. The great thing is that long term investors recognize this and understand the difference between short term and long term issues and the case for Nigeria persuades one to plan for the longer term opportunities.” [myad]
