By Aliyu DANLADI
The Presidential Candidate for People’s Trust Party, Mr Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, has pledged to grow Nigeria’s economy from $510billion (its highest in 2013) to 4trillion dollars in 10 years, if elected into office.
The Presidential Aspirant disclosed this in Abuja.
“We want to grow the economy of Nigeria to become $4trillion in 10 years and that will put us at par with Malaysia, Thailand, as middle income economies and these were economies that Nigeria was ahead of in our early independence.
“We are not setting standards like we want to become the United States of America; we just want to be where we were in 10 years, where we were in 1960.
“A 510billion-dollar GDP as at 2013 when we celebrated being the biggest economy in Africa is of course too small for 200 million people as our projected population is now.
“Nigeria needs a 4trillion-dollar economy to become a middle income economy; that’s our target and it’s doable and we have set up a strategy to achieve this,’’ he said.
He also proposed to effect a minimum wage of N50,000 for workers, noting that the standard of living for Nigerian workers was quite low.
“I am going to have a N50,000 minimum wage and that is lower than the minimum wage that Nigerian workers were awarded in 1983 which was N125; at that time you needed 55 kobo for a dollar.
“So basically, N125 minimum wage was more than N60,000 of today’s Nigeria; so by the grace of God when elected, the minimum wage by the first anniversary of our government will be N50,000 in Nigeria.
“That is what I believe is decent for an average worker; you can’t deal with corruption when you underpay people,’’ he said.
He said his government would prioritise tourism, restructure the education system and expand income through infrastructure funds, solid minerals, foreign investments, and intellectual capital protection.
He promised to promote knowledge-based economy through effective copy right laws to ensure that innovators get due reward for their work and protect Nigeria’s intellectual property.
