Date: 2017-03-11

GENERAL SECRETARY, National Union of Tailoring and Textile Garment Workers Union, Comrade Issa Aremu, has faulted the economic recovery blueprint released by the Federal Government on Wednesday.

The FG had in the document stated that the country recorded highest economic growth of 6.7 %, but Aremu said the growth fell far below the 12 and 15% rates, which Nigeria consistently recorded in the 60s.

Aremu, who is also a former National Deputy President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, spoke at the University of Ilorin where he delivered the first personality, a lecture organised by the Postgraduate Students' Association, POGSASS, at the University of Ilorin.

The Labour Leader, who spoke on the theme: "Scaling the Hurdles of Economic Quagmire", said the plan lacks vision and that the celebrated growth rate was far below what Nigeria recorded in the 60s.

He, however, commended the Federal Government for eventually coming up with a blueprint almost 2 years after the inauguration of the President Muhammadu Buhari's administration that promised Nigerians "change".

Appraising the document, Aremu said the document "is in a vacuum "because" it is was not based on a vision".

He said Nigeria must borrow a leaf from countries like China and neighbouring Tanzania and Kenya that were working towards realising the vision 2050 and 2040 respectively and as well harness her "resources for national posterity of Nigeria and welfare of citizens as spelt out in the constitution".

Aremu said part of the plan is that Nigeria must re-industrialise the country, bring back moribund textile industries, declare emergency on job creation with a view to transforming Nigeria from being a consuming nation to a producing one.

The Vice Chancellor of the institution,Professor Abdulganiyu Ambali, in his address, said the institution through it entrepreneurship programmes had "transited from producing graduates that are job seekers to job creators" as a way of responding to the economic challenges confronting the nation.