By Ikugbadi Oluwasegun
President Bola Tinubu has said that Nigeria will not sustain a failed economic theory that sees to the wastage of 90% of its scarce revenue in the servicing of external debts amid many development challenges facing the country.
Tinubu made this statement on Sunday in Abuja while declaring open the Annual Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) at the Velodrome, Chief MKO Abiola Stadium, Abuja.
“Can we continue to service external debts with 90 per cent of our revenue? It is a path to destruction. It is not sustainable. We must make the very difficult changes that are necessary for our country to get up from slumber and be respected among the great nations of the world,” he said.
On the theme of the conference, “Getting it Right: Charting the Course for Nigeria’s Nation-Building,” the President stated that hard decisions must be made to set the country on a growth trajectory, despite the initial pains.
He said: “We cannot have the country we desire without the reforms we have initiated. It is painful at the beginning, in the short and medium term, but we must do what we have to do to take this nation to its great destiny. “ It is not about you and it is not about me. It is about our generations yet unborn, for whom we must bequeath a great and prosperous country.”
While energising the gathering of 16,190 lawyers in attendance with an extemporaneous speech,tinubu stated that the prosperity Nigerians require will only occur once poverty is banished from the society with the focused cooperation of Nigeria’s private sector leaders, many of whom were present at the opening. Emphasises that world-class remuneration for legal professionals can sanitize the Judiciary for a prosperous Nigeria.