The Nigerian Economic Society (NES) has highlighted the nation’s socio-economic dilemmas, including high inflation rate, poverty and low personal incomes, that require urgent attention by the federal government.
President Economic Council NES recommended that the Federal Government should institute economic governance with a presidential economic council backed by law and chaired by a renowned professor of economics to advice the president and to make economic recommendations to the government based on evidence and economy-wide macro-economic models.
This was contained in the communiqué issued at the end of the organization’s 65th Annual Conference in Abuja, which was made available to journalists at the weekend, as the group of economists also observed that leakages of resources had continued unabated in public organizations and recommended immediate steps to address the problem.
According to the document, “The conference highlighted Nigeria’s socio-economic dilemmas, which are urgent and challenging, such as low personal incomes, dysfunctional education and healthcare systems, unemployment, rising inflation, poverty, and other critical issues.
“These factors contribute to insecurity, food scarcity, energy poverty, widening social inequality and macro-economic instability. The urgency of addressing these challenges was the focal point of the conference deliberations, emphasizing the gravity of the situation”, it also added
NES equally recommended the instituting of “An economic governance structure for the country and designating some ministries as economic ministries that qualified economists and allied professionals must staff; and adopting macroeconomic models to analyze the impacts of policies and assess alternative scenarios, as well as prioritizing agro-allied industries to boost socioeconomic outcomes.
The body of economists lamented that despite various policy efforts, Nigeria’s socio-economic indicators remain concerning, with persistent issues such as low productivity, high poverty rates, and limited economic recovery. NES added that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Official Development Assistance (ODA) have not provided stable sources of development financing.
It observed a lack of synergy and coordination between fiscal and monetary authorities, weakening the effectiveness of ongoing economic reforms, while the dominance of the U.S. dollar in Nigeria’s economy has continued exposing it to external shocks, calling for a reduction in dollar reliance.
It recommended structural transformation, explaining that Nigeria required a broad-based transformation to ensure optimal resource utilization, diversification of its production base, and improved wellbeing for citizens, while calling for efforts to reduce insecurity in order to boost food production and stabilize prices across the country.
