Use 1% of GDP for stimulus package, ex gov Obi tells FG 

 Fred Ezeh, Abuja

The former Anambra state governor said that such intervention would help save millions of homes of poor and vulnerable people from crisis, as well as small businesses which are the key drivers of the economy.

Obi, who was a guest on Channels television programme, Sunrise Daily, on Wednesday, said the poor and vulnerable in Nigeria are the asset of the country and, as such, they should be properly taken care of irrespective of the situation.

He suggested to Federal Government adopt a more efficient and effective way to reach out to these people with the economic stimulus package for the next two or three months, and also come to their aide with business revival fund at end of COVID-19 pandemic.

He said: “It’s not a rocket science. It doable. Countries of the world that I know that have packaged economic stimulus for their people spent not less than one percent of their GDP. In our case, our GDP is $400 billion and spending one percent of it on our people as stimulus package will definitely not collapse this country.

“We consistently borrow to finance infrastructure and other things, the latest being over N20 billion. There’s absolutely nothing bad about that. But the most important infrastructure is our people. They should be alive and living in this critical period.

“If we can borrow over N20 billion for different infrastructures which is critical and important for national development, then we should be able to get $4 billion equivalent to attend to our people. If you multiply $4b which is one percent of our GDP, it will give you N1.6 trillion and that should strictly be channeled to stimulus package for our people.”

He thus asked government to quit complaining about non availability of funds and source for money from anywhere to attend to basic needs of the people. “Many of our people have reached the limit of their sacrifice. Some of these issues we are talking about were responsible for French revolution and we should avoid it,” he advised.

He added: “At this point, you can’t discuss anything other than the survival means of the people whether the money is there or not. People are afraid of recession but that would hit the global economy after the pandemic. Most important thing now is to save our peoples’ lives and make sure that the poor and vulnerable amongst us live for tomorrow because they are our asset and we need to protect them.

“I heard the Minister of finance, Zainab Ahmed, days ago, talk about how they would get money from Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) to augment disbursement to states in June, but she forgot that there are many people who might not live up to June if nothing is done urgently.”

Obi challenged government to find a way to mobilise resources to take care of vulnerable Nigerians, and in addition to that apologize to Nigerians for not saving ‘yesterday’ and sincerely recommit to building Nigeria like every other serious people are doing.