Several Nigerians, who are Chevening University alumni, have urged the different interest groups and segments in the country to come together to seek ways out of economic recession.

Senate President Bukola Saraki, an alumnus, fired the first salvo at the first leadership summit and gala night of Chevening Alumni Association of Nigeria (CAAN) in Lagos that Nigerians need to become creative to get out of the economic recession and improve their living standard.

The Chevening Scholarships Programme commenced in 1984 as the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Awards Scheme (FCOAS) and is funded by the British government’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The objective of the scheme is to build a network of friends of the U.K., who will be future leaders in their countries.

The Senate President said that the National Assembly was considering bills that would improve the lives of citizens.

One of such, he said, was a law that would compel government agencies, ministries and parastatals to patronise made-in Nigeria goods and services.

Saraki said: “This is something that we can use to turn around this country because government spends trillions of naira on foreign exchange to import them. Some of those things we import can be produced here. By so doing, we encourage young entrepreneurs and extend their services to ministries, agencies and parastatals.”

Also, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Paul Arkwright, said the gathering aimed to reach out so as to build a network that could work together with the British government to help Nigeria prosper.

According to Arkwright, “This summit is about the economy, to bring together ideas to get solutions to Nigeria’s problems. The people that have the wonderful benefits of education by the British universities are brought together with different ideas to come up with some solutions.”

Arkwright said the UK government wanted to impact on Nigeria’s agriculture, bring the best people into the public service, improve infrastructural and the power sectors, adding the his government was interested in turning around Nigeria’s education sector into something that people would be proud of with quality schools that they would like to send their children to.