Spokesperson of the Northern Elder’s Forum (NEF), Prof. Ango Abdullahi has said that the way out the current economic recession is not selling national assets but sacking federal government workers.

He made the statement in an interview with Vanguard. The former presidential adviser on agriculture and food security said that sacking 50 per cent of the country’s public service workforce or the reduction of its federal government’s cost by 50 per cent or both could save the day. READ ALSO: 123 terrorists killed in anti-Boko Haram operations He said: “The Present recession was hinged on the fact that 2016 budget was pegged at N6 trillion with recurrent taking N4 trillion, while N2 trillion is set aside for capital project. “Nigeria is a poor country and it is consumption based. We import and consume and we hardly produce. “Yet we have a very unproductive workforce. Nigeria workforce is not the productive type, but it takes a good chunk of the budget every year.

This year, they said that of the N6 trillion appropriated, only N2 trillion will be generated. The rest N4 trillion would have to be sought from somewhere else. And now we are in a recession. So, I will suggest two ways from which we can get out of recession. We must cut down unproductive spending. “And I am suggesting two ways in which we can do this and they are simple. The first one will not be socially and politically good. I will advise we go for the second one. “The first one is that we have to reduce the workforce by 50%. We are talking of a large unproductive workforce with a minimum wage of N18,000 per month both at the Federal, State and Local Government levels. But, I know that it will be difficult to achieve that one.

“The second one is that we can cut salary and allowances of the workforce by 50%. Nigeria has become poor, so we have to consume less. “What kind of workforce do we have that cannot produce 5000Mw of electricity, that cannot fix broken schools, roads etc? “The idea of the National Economic Council, NEC, that our national assets should be disposed of is bad and unacceptable. Their argument cannot fly. Look at NEPA. It is a public company that is over 100 years old. It was sold to the same people who vandalised the economy and made it not to work. Is NEPA any better today? “They have stolen enough dollars and rubbished the Naira. In short time, the Naira has been devalued by over 200%. These are people who have stashed away dollars. They want Nigeria’s assets to be sold to them as scraps.

“If Government is serious about the economy, the best sector to give attention is agriculture. Agriculture alone makes 40% of our GDP. But this year, only 1.2% of the budget was committed to agriculture. “Agriculture is the solution to our economy not oil. From 1914 to 1974 everything this country got to develop the oil sector was from agriculture. They are not serious about diversifying the economy. They are only interested in a bloated budget. “Today Nigeria is broke. As I have said, the recurrent should be cut down. Labour, Federal Government, the National Assembly and all relevant sectors should dialogue over this. Our National assets must never be sold. “It is unfortunate that all the campaign promises made by this government are not being kept. They told us during their campaigns, ‘Nigeria is an oil producing country why should we buy fuel for N87 per litre? When you vote us to power, we shall sell fuel for N55per litre. Today Fuel is officially N145 per litre.’ “In place of a strong Naira, within weeks the Naira went from N197 to a dollar to about N420. And they are the ones who had the money to mop up the dollar. Now, they want to sell our collective heritage so that they can come out with their dollars and buy. That is unacceptable.

Source

Sauce

The entire wage bill of civil servants in the 36 states and FCT is about 160billion naira momthly.

The national assembly budget is about that. Do the calculation. Which ome is better?

I agree with this man !

May God almighty punish all those wicked hypocrites calling or supporting the sack of workers sicknes n pain must surely b thier portion

Hehehe...Second phase of recession loading. As it was in 1984, so it's becoming in 2016

Kwantinu
Sai baba

This Ango Abdullahi is a double disaster, he is a major tribalist in the mold of Kwankwanso and he compounds it with off logic advises/surmations..

I hope the northern state civil service workers that transferred to federal on 1 or 2 grades more than should be will be the first and major casualties... Especially the ones that can barely make themselves understood!

If he is cool wwith that, then everyone's game!!

DaudaAbu:
The entire wage bill of civil servants in the 36 states and FCT is about 160billion naira momthly.

The national assembly budget is about that. Do the calculation. Which ome is better?

The man is not worthy of being called a proffessor..

Everybody keeps blabbing agric upandan, truly developed nations, how many dey for farms? They think its hoe and cutlass with watering can we dey yarn!! real mechanised farming does not need multitude, all that is required is the land and machinery to deliver... The addendum are infrastructures like good roads to transport produce, stable power to preserve excess and good credit facilities to cushion the effect of poor harvest...

Agric ko, food and nutrition ni!! Mtcheeww!!

modath:
This Ango Abdullahi is a double disaster, he is a major tribalist in the mold of Kwankwanso and he compounds it with off logic advises/surmations..

I hope the northern state civil service workers that transferred to federal on 1 or 2 grades more than should be will be the first and major casualties... Especially the ones that can barely make themselves understood!

If he is cool wwith that, then everyone's game!!

If his words agriculture got just 1.2 % of the budget is true, then he is forgiven.
At this stage Agriculture should consume 40% of our budget.

Lol.

Prof. Ango Abdullahi.

I have never taken the man seriously. He always has this posture of a clown.

I've seen him a couple of times, and on all occasions, I've heard him talk balderdash. The only time he makes sense is when he is addressing a religious organization.

Proudlyngwa:

If his words agriculture got just 1.2 % of the budget is true, then he is forgiven.
At this stage Agriculture should consume 40% of our budget.

Bros, it's not government that should provide funds directly, they should guarantee bank favlcilities at rock bottom rates and also guarantee purchase to cushion the effects of occassional bad yields...

If Agric take 40,health and education nko? What of the road wey go lead to dem farms, markets &stores?

modath:



Bros, it's not government that should provide funds directly, they should guarantee bank favlcilities at rock bottom rates and also guarantee purchase to cushion the effects of occassional bad yields...

If Agric take 40,health and education nko? What of the road wey go lead to dem farms, markets &stores?

Right now, what we need more than anything is food. High price of food is leading to high price of everything else.
When I talk of Agriculture, I mean agricultural structures.
What the Govt needed to have done was provide farm equipments for lease as 90% of farmers can't afford or have access to mechanised farming.
Set up storage and processing facilities to reduce waste which they can lease and sell as shares of not more than 2% to registered farmers.
We messed up this year, me inclusive, hope next year will be better.

Prof, your solution make sense ooo but e get as e be.
Anyways, if they want to go by that, they should start from the ministers, senators and them them before we can take your opinion with a pinch of salt or swallow it hook, line and sinker.

Just Negodu advise? Well what do expect from a bunch of ne'er do well and parasitic A.Bokis

If they tell u D amount spent on boko haram war and other security challenge in this country u'll weep. Most of our monies goes into security.

ignorant balderdash! so what do you save in an economy if not the people? Simply, make the workers productive! Agric ,Agric ....and you ' professors' know no shit about Agribusiness!

The huge economic population of Asia, Europe and middle East ,and even certain African markets like Botswana that wants sorghum badly is a vast opportunity to leverage on our food and agrowastes exports to bring in dollars and create millions of jobs which would shock this 'recession' but what are we doing: peasantry and rhetorics. Just imagine if an average farmer makes $1000 monthly! won't this recession be a blessing? it is very possible and I can prove it.
For example Millions of Oranges get wasted in Benue every year , what value chain strategies are putting in place to sell our oranges ? For your information, Nigeria is the highest producer of orange in Africa and 9th in the world but South Africa, Africa far 2nd producer, makes more money than we do. From our Banking/ lending culture, cultural practises, transportation,cold storage, value addition to Marketing we need to upgrade to leverage by using our rich human resources ,which the ' professor' wants sacked, along the different food pipelines .
For example it doesn't take more than 6 months to start packaging our oranges in cartons to sell abroad if we are serious.

What about our inability to meet up with up with the demands for other certain foods at the international markets? products like ginger,sesame, red corn, sorghum, cassava products etc?

Can't we set up agro tourism hubs where mechanized practices, ICT and tourism are married to churn out smart agribiz experts;special foods for mainly exports based on contract farming; an enthralling nature or environment accentuated by creativity and our cultures which willing tourists are ready to appreciate for a token ? is it too much? for example did it take Songhai integrated farm model eternity before it came to being?
Isn't the EU presently frowning at our chemicalised beans ,fish etc thereby earning us bans and livelihoods lost consequently especially after 1 year of warning us? Where are extension services to teach the farmers about global best practices in food preservation? where is professor Ango's agricultural skills to help Fulani women organize themselves into a cooperative to own a ranch where a small diary firm can collect about 500kg of fresh milk for its factory instead of the present anomaly where we import 70% of our dairy products especially packaged milk?
Sacking is a lazy excuse to escaping from the serious business of confronting this economy .

If this kind of action is taken by this present day APC Government then their only mission in Nigeria is to kill her. John. 10:10 AMP:The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows).