TheCable

Dele Alake, minister of solid minerals development, says Nigeria will soon overcome its current economic hardship.

Speaking in a statement on Wednesday, Alake said the hardship being experienced by Nigerians is because the country is currently undergoing a period of economic restructuring and reforms.

According to the minister, President Bola Tinubu’s ‘Renewed Hope’ agenda aims to revamp Nigeria’s economy and put it on a pedestal for sustainable growth.

He said the president has a track record of changing the economic tides, just as he did when he was the governor of Lagos state.

“Going down memory lane to the experience in Lagos state, the then governor Tinubu in 1999, met a state that was almost insolvent, with a monthly internally generated revenue (IGR) of N600 million and a wage bill of over N1.1 billion monthly, with little or no resources to cater to infrastructure and other sectors of the economy,” he said.

“President Tinubu took similar measures in Lagos as he is taking in Nigeria, to turn the tide and financially re-engineer the state.

“Today, the state is the fifth largest economy in Africa, bigger than most African countries.

“What we are going through is the gestation period of reforms and policies for economic restructuring and like the president will say, it is like throes of pregnancy that a pregnant woman goes through. After delivery, she heaves a sigh of relief.”

The minister urged Nigerians to be patient with the government as the current economic situation will soon stabilise with positive results from ongoing reforms.

Alake said he is confident in this administration’s capacity to diversify the economy, plug leakages, and redirect the economy to a path of sustainable growth.

“The future of this country is extremely very bright. What we need to do is to exude confidence in our ability and capacity to weather the storm of restructuring, economic and societal restructuring,” the minister said.

“As we restructure our economy, putting in physical infrastructure, we must also restructure our minds and mental capacity to be at par with physical development so that we can efficiently and judiciously enjoy the benefits of physical development.”

Alake appealed to Nigerians to cooperate with the government in the ongoing economic reforms, reassuring that the tide would turn very soon.

On February 27, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) embarked on a two-day nationwide protest over the prevailing economic hardship in the country.

The labour union has suspended its two-day nationwide protest after the first day, saying the objectives of the protest were achieved.