By Tony Obiechina, Abuja 

The Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) has said that the forthcoming 28th Nigerian Economic Summit (#NES28) would focus on discovering the imperatives for harnessing the country’s human capital wealth.

According to the group this will secure the nation’s collective future by identifying major factors for effective policy implementation.

In a statement by NESG titled ‘Shared Prosperity for all Nigerians: Why Everyone Should get involved’ the group further stated that #NES28 will also seek to galvanize stakeholders to deliberate on an actionable framework for transformative political leadership and effective governance, to facilitate economic growth and nation building.

The statement said, “The summit hopes to discern the imperatives for harnessing Nigeria’s latent human capital wealth as a means of securing our collective future by identifying critical factors for effective policy implementation for sustained economic growth.

“#NES28 will also highlight stakeholder actions needed to eliminate barriers to inclusive economic growth and development; Identify pragmatic initiatives to elicit economic leadership at the subnational levels, by adopting a “Bottom Up” approach to economic growth and development and articulate the economic agenda for the incoming leaders in 2023 and beyond”.

The NESG further noted that “Nigeria is a country blessed with a diversity of people, cultures, mineral resources, oil, and gas, amazingly rich biodiversity and abundantly diverse agroecologies that should make us a land of bountiful harvests with the capacity to feed Africa.

“But unfortunately, non-inclusive growth has stagnated the country’s growth and development over the years”.

It said Nigeria’s dependence on crude oil for the majority of the government’s revenue has been touted as a significant root cause of many economic challenges.

“Volatility in the commodity’s price has continually exposed the economy to external shocks leading to dwindling government revenue, a slowdown in foreign exchange inflows, unpredictability in planning and economic recession.

“The neglect of other viable sectors has hampered holistic economic development and contributed to worsening economic indices such as rising inflation, unemployment, and currency devaluation.

“Data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) shows that historically, economic growth in Nigeria has been most volatile. Despite the vast growth potential in Nigeria, the economy grew at an average rate of 3.44% between 1982 and 2021, lagging behind the 4.5% average annual growth posted by emerging and developing economies during the same period.

“The recognition of the effects of non-inclusive growth has pushed forward a rethinking of economic growth priorities based on the need to raise citizens’ welfare and leveraging the guiding principle of shared prosperity”, the statement added.

It, therefore, pointed out that #NES28 presents the best opportunity for stakeholders to agree on a consensus on the national and sub-national imperatives for economic security, social justice, conscientious governance, political stability and environmental sustainability.

The 28th Nigerian Economic Summit (#NES28) with the theme “2023 and Beyond: Priorities for Shared Prosperity” is scheduled to hold in Abuja on the 14th and 15th of November, 2022.