By Tony Obiechina, Abuja 

The Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) has cancelled its planned Presidential debate among candidates in the coming 2023 elections.

The presidential debate was scheduled to hold next week in Abuja as part of the National Economic Summit (NES#28).

Organizers of the summit shelved the debate because of what they called “unfavorable climate”.

In place of the debate, NESG said it will organize a town hall meeting for presidential candidates of the political parties at a later date.

NESG Chairman Mr. Asue Ighodalo confirmed the change of plan on Wednesday while responding to questions from journalists after a scheduled pre-summit press briefing by the Minister of State for Finance, Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Agba.

 Asue Ighodalo said there must be a minimum level of issues which presidential aspirants must sign on to. 

He said the NESG had “hoped there was going to be a debate, but the prevailing climate wasn’t comfortable for it any more”.

“However we are planning a town hall arrangement. It’s fundamental each aspirant tells Nigerians how he intends to tackle each sector of the economy. The public can then take them up copiously sector by sector. There will be no aspirant that will say I don’t know. I promise this “, he said.

Speaking more on what this year’s summit will cover, Ighodalo projected that “in five years, Nigeria can become a leading industrializing and reforming nation in Africa that focuses on building its State capacity and capabilities”. 

Within that period, Nigeria he said, “can break free from decades-long political, policy, legislative and regulatory binding constraints”. 

“We can create an enabling investment climate and business environment, underpinned by a motivated, capacitated, well-resourced, world-class civil service that drives open, transparent, high-performance governance at all levels. 

We can move Nigeria decisively towards structural and institutional reforms required to unlock local content development, sub-national economic diversification, competitiveness, and growth in the medium term. 

“We can make moderate and incremental progress in poverty reduction and job creation, and we can make Nigeria the dominant shareholder of FDI inflows into the African continent.

Since the country is in full electioneering season, Ighodalo noted that “2023 presents another opportunity to demonstrate a strong political will to tackle Nigeria’s socio-economic challenges”  

According to him this year, the NESG “seeks to unveil the most critical challenges for urgent attention: these are unemployment surge, huge infrastructural deficit, fiscal weakness, human capital and skills gap, flawed security architecture, and corruption. This summit will delve into the causes and implications of these critical challenges”. 

Ighodalo lamented that “our nation is in a season of social discontent characterised by massive economic pressures and challenges on businesses and citizens. Macroeconomic instability is driven by stagflation pushing more people below the poverty line. More Nigerians are multidimensionally poor than are monetarily poor. The World Bank estimates that in 2022 alone, 7 million Nigerians will go into extreme poverty” .

“These socioeconomic pressures are accentuated by rising food inflation and a growing food insecure population that the World Food Programme puts at 61 Million as of October 2022. This situation has over 38% of our under-5 children experiencing chronic malnutrition and 70% of our children suffering from Learning Poverty (lacking basic literacy and numeracy skills). 

He said “Nigeria’s Internally Displaced Persons Index 2021 shows that we had 3.2 million IDPs as of last year. This year adds an additional 1 million IDPs triggered by flooding that has not only destroyed lives and livelihoods but threatens food sufficiency and security”. 

In his remark, the Minister of state for Budget and National Planning Prince Clem  Agba said NES #28, jointly convened with the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, is anchored on imperative partnership. 

The Minister said 11 pre-summit events had been held between August and September across sectors and thematic areas in preparation for NES #28.

These he said covered fiscal policy, investment, financial inclusion, MSMEs, and Infrastructure, amongst others. 

“The Pre-Summit events also included a National Economic Dialogue for Youths focused on critical areas, including Economic Growth and Stability and Human Capital Development. 

“These events have kick-started the Summit discussions and will be examined in further detail at the Summit, with outcomes reflected in the 2022 green book”, Minister said.