Nigeria must look beyond oil, according to Peter Obi, the presidential candidate for the Labour Party, if it wants to expand its economy. Obi stated that: “As a nation, Nigeria must look beyond oil. We, therefore, intend to leapfrog Nigeria from oil to the Fourth Industrial Revolution by expanding physical infrastructure through market-driven reforms that will unleash growth-enabling entrepreneurship and market-creating innovations.”
Obi highlighted the importance of transforming Nigeria from a consuming to a producing country in his tweets. He alluded to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, in which disruptive technologies are used to create new economies.
Obi’s declaration serves as a sign of his dedication to making sure that Nigeria has a diversified economy that can support its expanding population. The Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) governor, Godwin Emefiele, declared last week that the sale of crude oil is no longer the source of the nation’s foreign reserves. Emefiele claims that from more than $3 billion per month in 2014 to exactly zero dollars now, the official foreign exchange receipt from crude oil sales into Nigeria’s official reserves has gradually decreased.
The significance of Nigeria changing its focus away from oil and expanding other economic areas is suggested by this statement.
Peter Obi continued his remarks on Twitter by stating that he intended to locally refine Nigeria’s oil. After concentrating on other aspects of economic progress, this will happen. He claims that strengthening the tax system and ending leaks like the fuel subsidy program will also aid in Nigeria’s transition from a consuming to a producing economy.
he made this statement in a string of tweets on Sunday, November 27, 2022,
The World Bank Public Finance Review assessment of Nigeria from November 2022 indicated that the nation’s system of fuel subsidies, which only favors the wealthy, should be abolished. The research recommended that the government completely discontinue the exchange rate, gasoline, and electricity subsidies. All levels of government will be able to use some of the savings to invest in desperately needed physical and human resources as well as to implement specialized programs to safeguard the weak and the disadvantaged.
Peter Obi says he wants to make the tax system in the nation better. It is essential to know that the projected tax deficit in Nigeria is between 14 and 15 percent of GDP (GDP). This is following the earlier stated World Bank Review report. According to the research, Nigeria had a median non-oil tax to GDP ratio of barely 4.5 percent between 2017 and 2019, placing it 167th out of 175 countries before the COVID-19 epidemic.
According to the analysis, all major tax inflows are much below where they could be. Value-added tax (VAT) receipts are currently between 0.8 and 1% of GDP, corporate taxes are barely 1% of GDP, and customs and excise duties range from 0.4 to 0.6% of GDP.
The GDP is just about 1% of other independent non-oil sources of income. These include profits from state-owned businesses, state-collected personal income tax (PIT), and taxes and charges gathered by municipal governments.
