By Chidinma Ewunonu-Aluko
Ibadan – Prof. Oyesoji Aremu, the Deputy Director (Academic), Distance Learning Centre, University of Ibadan (UI), has urged the National Economy Team, Chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, to be proactive.
Aremu, also a senior lecturer at the Institute for Peace and Strategic Studies, UI, gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan on Thursday.
He said that it was not all about having the economy team or not as many people had argued, but about the team doing the needful.
Aremu stressed the need for the country to have its home-grown economic policies that would improve the economy.
“The team should look inward and address issues such as importing foreign policies; we need Nigerian philosophy on economy and not that of other countries.
“We are being driven through importation a lot, that should not be, but we should start producing the things we need, let the importation be for basic things we can’t produce alone.
“By now, we shouldn’t be importing rice and flour while we have arable land where we can farm, the huge foreign exchange used for importation can be used for other things,” he said.
The don advised government to give incentives to farmers like soft loans to enable them produce food in commercial quantities.
He also stressed the need for the country to have storage facilities for foods.
“There should be national storage facility where the government can buy excess food produced by farmers, preserve and store them.
“And when there is recession, the government will go to the facility and release food to the market.
“The facility should also be in states, zonal levels and local governments; some families are already rationing foods in the country, we need to address it.
“We need more of food plantations and storage facilities to make them last for some years; these are the ways out.”
Aremu emphasised the need for the education sector to develop curricular that would be relevant to happenings in the society globally.
“Most of our curricular, right from the primary school level to the tertiary level, don’t address the global economy.
“You can imagine someone born in the 21st century still being taught the same things his or her forefathers learnt; we can’t improve that way, each institution should have a sustainable curricular.
“We should also have the right personnel to be able to imply the right curricular; there is also need to create enabling environment for the teachers to deliver.
Edited by Morayo Omolade/controlled by Tajudeen Atitebi
