By Harry Awurumibe, Editor Abuja Bureau
Imo state Governor, Senator Hope Uzodinma has dismissed with the wave of the hand the World Bank’s recent warning that “Nigeria might be facing an existential threat”
if the country fail to optimise its tax system and focus on other areas to boost its revenue.
The international financial institution through the Senior Public Sector Specialist, Domestic Resource Mobilisation, at the World Bank, Mr Rajul Awasthi, last Wednesday also warned Nigeria that the already low revenue would continue to drop with the continued payment of trillions of naira on fuel subsidy by the government and the attendant economic challenges.
Despite the glaring evidence on ground favouring the World Bank’s warning, Governor
Uzodinma has poured cold water on the warning, arguing that World Bank is fond of saying that Nigeria will go under for a long time but that has not happened.
Speaking to State House Correspondents after a closed doors meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Friday, the Imo state Governor insists that Nigeria is in good hands and will not collapse as World Bank warned.
According to him: “Even 25 years ago, before 1999, World Bank has always said Nigeria will break into pieces and today Nigeria has not been broken into a half piece. This country is loved by God and our faith in God has been keeping this country”.
“We have had friendly enemies as partners, both internationally and nationally, but yet Nigeria continues to exist. There is nowhere in the world you will go and the gas stations you will see are not Shell, ExxonMobil, Texaco (Overseas), all the major oil producing companies”.
“It is only in Nigeria that you will hear languages like independent marketers, Okafor & Sons Filling Station and all that. What is the World Bank saying about that?”
“It is only in Nigeria you talk about subsidy. What is World Bank saying about that? It is only in Nigeria you hear jargons like Turna-Around-Maintenance, where else in the world do you have such language?”
“A refinery is a process plant that requires just routine maintenance and cleaning, but here we spend billions of dollars to do what they call turnaround maintenance. If you have been to the United States, Texas in particular, where crude oil production is heavy, when you are arriving Houston airport, look at the environment; they plant vegetables, farmers live there, an environment where they produce crude oil”.
“What is the cost of producing one barrel of crude oil in Houston by Shell and what is the cost of producing one barrel of crude oil by Shell in Nigeria? But if you are landing Warri Airport, look at the local river, there is no fish anymore, the place is highly polluted”.
Speaking further, Governor Uzodinma stated:
“There’s total disregard to our environmental laws and nobody’s raising all these issues, rather what we want to occupy ourselves with is knowing a party that has Muslim-Muslim ticket and a party that has Christian-Christian ticket”.
“So, they are making a mockery of us and if we don’t rise up and address our challenges, nobody, I repeat, nobody, will do it for us. We have to define our country, we have to identify, collectively, our national interest so we can also collectively defend it”.
“Our own bank is Central Bank of Nigeria and we are going to look up to them to come up with policies that will protect and secure our economy”.