Nigeria’s current socio-economic challenges are being exacerbated by an astronomic increase in human population that dwarfs the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), said Fourth Republic Vice President Atiku Abubakar.
He warned that the country has come “to a point where we have an ever-increasing population competing for resources that are not keeping pace with population growth.”
Atiku made the disclosure on Friday, while delivering the keynote address at the Silverbird Man of the Year event at Eko Hotel, Lagos.
He also said Nigeria has been in denial about restructuring, noting: “With a failing economy, worsening insecurity, and negative indices in almost all spheres of the human development index, we can no longer run from the obvious.”
He maintained that Nigeria must “embrace restructuring as something that must be done to fix Nigeria’s broken systems, not just a campaign gimmick that we fish out of our magic hats and deny after we have got what we want.”
He said: “The restructuring that I, Atiku Abubakar, envision, will see no state receive less money from the federation account than it currently does. I hope that will ease the anxieties of some who oppose restructuring. Restructuring will not cheat you. It will free you.”
He described his Man of the Year as “the gallant men and women of the Nigerian Armed Forces, who paid the supreme price to protect us from terrorists and those who desire to divide us.”
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