1. It is my pleasure to present
the 2017 Budget Proposals to
this distinguished Joint
Assembly: the Budget of
Recovery and Growth.
2. We propose that the
implementation of the Budget
will be based on our
Economic Recovery and
Growth Strategy. The Plan,
which builds on our 2016
Budget, provides a clear road
map of policy actions and
steps designed to bring the
economy out of recession and
to a path of steady growth
and prosperity.
3. We continue to face the
most challenging economic
situation in the history of our
Nation. Nearly every home
and nearly every business in
Nigeria is affected one way or
the other.
4. Yet I remain convinced
that this is also a time of
great opportunity. We have
reached a stage when the
creativity, talents and
resilience of the Nigerian
people is being rewarded.
Those courageous and
patriotic men and women
who believed in Nigeria are
now seeing the benefits
gradually come to fruition. I
am talking about the farmers
who today are experiencing
bumper harvests, the
manufacturers who
substituted imported goods
for local materials and the
car assembly companies who
today are expanding to meet
higher demand.
5. Distinguished members of
National Assembly, for the
record: For many years we
depended on oil for foreign
exchange revenues. In the
days of high oil prices, we did
not save. We squandered.
6. We wasted our large
foreign exchange reserves to
import nearly everything we
consume. Our food, Our clothing, Our
manufacturing inputs, Our fuel and
much more. In the past 18 months when
we experienced low oil prices, we saw
our foreign exchange earnings cut by
about 60%, our reserves eroded and our
consumption declined as we could not
import to meet our needs.
7. By importing nearly everything, we
provide jobs for young men and women
in the countries that produce what we
import, while our own young people
wander around jobless. By preferring
imported goods, we ensure steady jobs
for the nationals of other countries,
while our own farmers, manufacturers,
engineers, and marketers, remain
jobless.
8. I will stand my ground and maintain
my position that under my watch, that
old Nigeria is slowly but surely
disappearing and a new era is rising in
which we grow what we eat and
consume what we make.
We will CHANGE our habits and we will
CHANGE Nigeria.
9. By this simple principle, we will
increasingly grow and process our own
food, we will manufacture what we can
and refine our own petroleum products.
We will buy ‘Made in Nigeria’ goods. We
will encourage garment manufacturing
and Nigerian designers, tailors and
fashion retailers. We will patronize local
entrepreneurs. We will promote the
manufacturing powerhouses in Aba,
Calabar, Kaduna, Kano, Lagos, Nnewi,
Onitsha, and Ota. From light
manufacturing to cement production
and petrochemicals, our objective is to
make Nigeria a new manufacturing hub.
10. Today, the demand of the urban
consumer has presented an opportunity
for the rural producer. Across the
country, our farmers, traders and
transporters are seeing a shift in their
fortunes. Nigerians who preferred
imported products are now consuming
made in Nigeria products. From Argungu
in Kebbi to Abakalaki in Ebonyi, rice
farmers and millers are seeing their
products move. We must replicate such
success in other staples like wheat,
sugar, soya, tomato and dairy products.
Already, the Ministry of Agriculture and
Rural Development, the Central Bank of
Nigeria, the Organised Private Sector
and a handful of Nigerian commercial
banks, have embarked on an ambitious
private sector-led N600 billion program
to push us towards self-sufficiency in
three years for these products. I hereby
make a special appeal to all State
Governors to make available land to
potential farmers for the purpose of this
program.
11. To achieve self-sufficiency in food
and other products, a lot of work needs
to be done across the various value
chains. For agriculture, inputs must be
available and affordable. In the past,
basic inputs, like the NPK fert
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