Rural development will unlock Nigeria’s wealth, increase GDP by 30 percent – Ezea

Senator Okey Ezea has called on the federal government and local and foreign investors to shift attention to opportunities in Nigeria’s rural areas to enable unlocking the country’s wealth that could soar the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) by 30 percent in the next five years.
Senator Ezea, who represents Enugu North in the 10th Senate, spoke at a forum in Nsukka, Enugu State.
He said intentional rural development can lift the country’s GDP from current World Bank estimates of around $1.315 trillion to $2 trillion or more if the appropriate measures are taken to harvest the hidden wealth in its rural communities.
Currently, the contribution of Nigeria’s rural population (which constitutes more than 45 percent of the country’s total population) to the national GDP is estimated at 25 percent, but Senator Ezea believes that with the right policy actions, the country will get a lot more from this segment of the population.
“When I speak of rural development, I do not want to be understood as referring to the urbanization of the rural areas.
“On the contrary, I am talking about the exploitation of the abundant economic opportunities in our rural communities, the creation of wealth through deliberate policy actions and redirection of investment opportunities,” he stated.
“There is a lot we can gain from investing in the economic opportunities in our rural areas.
“Unfortunately, it does appear that the business community does not see the abundant opportunities, but investments in agriculture and its endless value chain are one area that is capable of taking millions of people out of poverty through job creation and birthing market opportunities where none existed,” he added.
On how this can be done, the senator said a lot depended on the priorities of the government in providing enabling infrastructure and creating financial opportunities.
“One thing that governments at the federal, state, and local government areas should do is to be deliberate about the provision of infrastructure in the rural areas.
“Roads are important, so also are agricultural inputs,” he said.
Continuing, he called on the government to creatively provide finance opportunities for small-scale investors in rural areas at friendly rates.
“The Federal Government has, in the past, created some special purpose finance vehicles to drive investments in rural agriculture and other enterprises.
“One of them is the Nigerian Agricultural Cooperative And Rural Development Bank (NARDB).
“This special bank was designed to provide single-digit credit to rural farmers and businesses.
“I do not know how effective they have become, but there is evidence that a lot needs to be done to make its impact felt.
“The first thing to do is to redesign the disbursement methods by making the thriving microfinance banks spread all over the country the disbursement channels.
“This will eliminate the situations where such special funds are hijacked by politicians and their cronies.
“It will also ensure improved repayment frequencies and costs because it is the MFBs that will work out repayment plans failing which they will be excluded from future disbursements,” Senator Ezea said.
These, he stressed, will ensure that productive capital gets to rural entrepreneurs, curtail migration, and “become the nectar that will draw the interest of bigger private sector investors that will be attracted by infrastructure, an availability of opportunities along the value chain, thus changing the economic fortunes of the country in five years or less.
“If government at all levels becomes intentional about this, the 30 percent increase which I projected will likely be surpassed.
“Our traditional agriculture resources alone are enough to transform this economy if duly and profitably exploited.
“If we then exploit the various value chains of the crops we produce, like yams, cocoa, cassava, oil palm, and all the fruits and grains that thrive in many parts of this country, I do not see any reason why we wouldn’t be globally competitive in food production in a few years,” he concluded.
Rural development will unlock Nigeria’s wealth, increase GDP by 30 percent – Ezea