By Hamza Waziri
The Member representing Chanchaga Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, Hon. Mohammed Umaru Bago, has expressed concern over Niger State being tagged a “Civil Servants State” 46 years after its creation.
The Legislature, who is the Niger State All Progressives Congress (APC) Gubernatorial Candidate for the forthcoming 2023 general elections, said this at the Micro Small and Medium Enterprises MSME Stakeholders Dialogue and Market Exhibition organized by the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) in Nger State office with the support of GIZ SEDIN, held on Saturday at Haske Luxury Hotels in Minna, the state capital.
“It is, however, worrisome that at 46, Niger State is still being described as a Civil Service State, relying mainly on handouts from Abuja”, he said.
“In fact, a report of an empirical survey conducted by KPMG for the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council ( PEBEC) headed by Vice President Yemi Osibanjo released last year, revealed that our state ranked 26th in the national ease of doing business index.
“This is not where we ought to be, especially when we consider our resource endowment and potential”, he added.
Bago who was represented by the Coordinator of the Bago Economic Think Tank Team, Barr. Maurice Magaji, said the poverty rate of our state reached an unprecedented 66.11 percent in 2019, which placed Niger as the 8th poorest state in Nigeria in terms of unemployment, the Nigerian National Living Standard Survey ( NLSS) conducted by National Bureau Statistic in 2019 with the support of the World Bank put unemployment rate in the state at 21.2 percent for male and 72.8 percent for female.
The narrative, Bago, said he intended to change when elected as the governor come 2023, adding that when businesses that produced goods and services that were in demand, were supported, everyone in the state benefited from job creation resulting in money being put back into the community, to taxes that help the government smoothly run and provide maintenance and improvement of the state’s infrastructure.
He asserted that the success of the MSMEs is capable of driving the economic success of an entire country, including through the contribution of gross domestic product (GDP) which affects global standing.
He thanked the organizers of the program, promising to partner with them in the nearest future in order to be able to change the situation.