Governor of Anambra State, Prof. Charles Soludo
By Chidimma C. Okeke
Governor of Anambra State, Prof. Charles Soludo, says Nigeria is undergoing a fundamental and disruptive reset with the removal of subsidy by the current administration.
Soludo stated this on Thursday while delivering the 13th Convocation lecture of Veritas University, Abuja, tagged, “Let Us Make A New Deal for Nigeria”.
He said: “Hopefully, we have ended the debilitating scam called fuel subsidy as well as the forex and electricity subsidies. We have entered a muddling-through phase which we must navigate carefully.
“As we muddle-through the shocks occasioned by the needed disruptive changes, we must sit and craft a pragmatic New Deal for Nigeria plus an emergency national infrastructure plan akin to the U.S Marshall Plan for Europe after the Second World War.”
The governor said Nigeria must migrate from the destructive subsidies that benefitted largely the urban elite to a productive social contract that creates opportunity for all.
He said, “Criminality has become the “new economy,” banditry, kidnapping and drug epidemic. Much of our public service is transactional rather than transformational, and it is increasingly becoming difficult for people to render service except it benefits them personally.
“The quest for money as an end is deafening, and for a growing percentage of our youths, their motto in life is: “get rich young or die trying’, For many, it is increasingly difficult to maintain balance especially in a culture where virtue has little currency,” he said.
The Convocation lecturer urged everyone, including the graduating students, to do something about the current situation of the country.
“A new social contract with basic socio-economic rights is possible. Luckily, you are graduates of Veritas University—whose mission broadly interpreted is to mould new Nigerians that will create a new Nigeria. “
