A financial analyst, Dr Samuel Nzekwe, has advised the Federal Government to fully diversify Nigeria’s economy into agriculture to stem the rising inflation.
Nzekwe, a former President, Association of National Accountants of Nigeria (ANAN), gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Ota, Ogun.
He spoke against the backdrop of the increase from 22.79 per cent in June to 24.08 per cent in July in inflation figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Tuesday.
The ex-ANAN president said that the advice had become necessary as food inflation was the higher out of the inflation data released by NBS.
Nzekwe said that this showed that there was a food shortage, which led to an increase in the prices of food.
“If the federal government can get agriculture right, this will automatically bring down the nation’s inflation rate because it affects other sectors of the economy.
“It also needs to intensify efforts to tackle security challenges so that farmers can go to the farms to produce and also leverage on our comparative advantage, which is agriculture, to boost foreign earnings,” he said.
Nzekwe stressed the need to provide critical infrastructure like electricity, good road network among others for the productive sector to thrive.
This, he said, would help the manufacturers to produce cheaper goods at a reduced cost, thus bringing down the country’s inflation rate.
He attributed the continuous rising inflation rate in the country to the removal of fuel subsidy because industries and all Nigerians make use of petrol, thus causing ripple effects on the economy.
Nzekwe added that things imported into the country were dollar-denominated and converted to naira, therefore the prices become higher, leading to rising inflation.
He said that the price of petrol would still further rise because Nigeria does not have control over the dollars, adding that all these contribute to the rising inflation rate.
