The Chief Executive Officer of Financial Derivatives Company, Bismarck Rewane, stated, Nigeria will need to grow its economy by at least seven to eight percent yearly, over a five-to-ten-year period, based on an investment-led strategy, to accomplish a Gross Domestic Product level of $1.5trillion by 2030.
He said this in a paper titled: “Building the Future of Nigeria through Enterprise and Innovation,” which he delivered at a public lecture organised by a Pan-Nigerian coalition, the Building the Future Forum, in Abuja, on Monday.
Rewane revealed that while Nigeria has made some progress in terms of the ease of doing business, there was still a lot more work to be done for the nation to derive full benefits from its potential.
He said, “The issue however is not whether Nigeria has made some achievements and successes, but compared to its potential, Nigeria is still a laggard in many respects.
“Therefore, we have our work cut out for us and if we are going to achieve accelerated, sustainable and inclusive growth, we need to attract domestic and international capital with its attendant investment multiplier to achieve a GDP level of $1.5trn by 2030 when our population could be 250mn or more.
“We need to grow the economy at least at 7-8% a year for 5-10 years based on an investment-led strategy. If we fail to do this very soon, the problems of multidimensional poverty, debt, and insecurity may consume us in the next decade.”
The economist also noted that the nation needed people with the kind of intellectual depth of Vice President Osinbajo, to make the private sector feel at ease in the policymaking community.
Rewane said, “We need people in public life who have candour like Prof Osinbajo and more than anything else, we need people like him who can make the private sector feel at ease in the policy-making community. Once again, happy birthday to a leader of the people, societies, and enterprises.”
Osinbajo who joined the event via zoom said he was pleasantly surprised that organizers chose to honour him the way they’ve done. He expressed gratitude to all those involved.
Personalities who attended the event include Minister of Works and Housing Babatunde Fashola and his Internal Affairs counterpart, Rauf Aregbesola, a representative of the Dantata family, Saad Dantata, the Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum, Kayode Fayemi among others.
