President Muhammadu Buhari has blamed poverty and insecurity Nigeria is experiencing on decades of neglect and resource mismanagement.
Buhari stated this Tuesday when he received the board of Ecobank Transnational Incorporated, led by the Group Chairman, Mr Emmanuel Ikazoboh, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
According to him, Nigeria would have been prosperous and peaceful if her assets and resources were properly managed.
He said government remains committed to the goals of securing the country, engendering inclusive economic growth and fighting corruption, adding that Nigeria was in a unique position as the most populous and resource-rich nation on the African continent.
In a statement by Femi Adesina, his Special Adviser on Media and publicity, the President said resources would be harnessed and properly managed to engender a prosperous and peaceful country.
Noting that his government was not only determined to reverse the trend of squander-mania and mismanagement, Buhari said: “We have made progress in some areas, such as agriculture.”
He, therefore, appealed to Ecobank Transnational Incorporated to “institute a special fund to develop agriculture, which will cement your legacy as a bank that helped to transform this region’s economic fortunes.”
President Buhari commended Ecobank for being active in promoting financial inclusion, noting that it was key to the government’s diversification agenda.
On requests by the bank for decongestion of Apapa ports, and rebuilding of the transnational Lagos-Badagry-Seme road, he said: “We are aware and are working in all those areas, and by the grace of God, you will start seeing results during my second term in office.”
Ikazoboh stated that the Ecobank Group was in 36 countries in Africa, disclosing that the bank, founded 30 years ago by private sector entrepreneurs, has over 20 million customers, with more than eight million of them in Nigeria.
He said President Buhari’s recent re-election was a testimony of the hard work done, adding that reforms embarked on by the administration, across all sectors, “will have deep, long term impact on Nigeria, West Africa, and Africa.”
Speaking with State House correspondents at the end of the meeting, Ikazoboh said: “We come to congratulate the President on his re-election and to wish him God’s guidance and spiritual protection to continue to lead this nation because we believe that he has the interest of the country at heart and if Nigeria succeeds, Africa has succeeded and being the leader of Nigeria, he is the leader of Africa.
“Since we are Pan-African bank, we needed to come and see the leader of Africa.”
Asked if the bank has any challenge it needed the President to intervene, he said: “Well, in our speech, we have told him some of the challenges faced by Nigeria and Africa.
“As I said earlier, if Nigeria is sorted out, Africa is sorted out, and some of these challenges are infrastructure, which they are working on assiduously. Also, we are talking about the Seme road because of West African trade route which we think should be given some priority. And to thank him also for the steps he is taking to clear the Apapa Port because that is where trade is coming into Nigeria.”
On what the bank was doing to support SMEs in the country, the Ecobank chief said: “We’ve improved the capital of Ecobank in Nigeria. In the last six months, we have brought in about $150 million to drive borrowings and support the small and medium enterprises.”
On the budget, he said, there was still a political issue.
“We are businessmen, we don’t talk about politics. However, when he talks about the budget, the president knows what he is talking about when he said that the budget has been tampered with. The executive knows what it wants to do, it knows the revenue it’s expecting and he’s being told to increase the expenditure, then there will be some difficulty in implementing the budget. I guessed that is what he was trying to talk about.
“The president appreciates our concern and has given us assurance that he will address some of the issues which are already being addressed like the infrastructure work and improving the intra-African trade which route which they are already doing,” he added.
On the challenges confronting the banking sector in the country, he said the major problem currently confronting banks were debtors.
He said: “We have a number of debtors, both corporate and individuals, and we need to put in place a framework to ensure that people do not just take loan and not pay pack.
“Banks are under pressure because if you have a lot of unpaid loans, it means you don’t have enough money to also support other borrowings or other small and medium enterprises.”
Asked how much was the total amount of non-performing loans in Ecobank, he said: “I am in the group, so Nigeria is one of my subsidiary and I cannot really give you the actual figure for Nigeria.”
