PAUL Smith Obasi, an aspirant for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Senatorial seat on the platform of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) on Tuesday said bureaucratic bottlenecks are frustrating businesses in Nigeria.
Obasi said this in exclusive interview with The ICIR in Abuja ahead of the 2023 general elections.
The interview was part of a publicity platform created by The ICIR to support young and low-voice politicians across all political parties in the country.
The aspirant stressed the need to promote policies that would support business enterprises in the country.
“We need to kill bureaucracy. We should promote policies that will kill bureaucracy.
“You see our young people now most of them are going to logistic businesses but they don’t last long in the logistics business because of bureaucracy. AMAC will come and charge them, AEPB will come and charge them. It is not encouraging,” he said.
Obasi further observed that government policies are not encouraging young people to go into business.
Click to read 2023 political aspirants’ agendas here.
“We must pass these policies in Abuja and begin to better the lives of young people,” he said.
If elected as a senator, Obasi said he will work on policies that will promote business enterprises.
He said, “The primary duty of a senator is to influence policies and laws. Now there are simple policies that can turn around the lives and the human development capital of young people, women and children.”
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He explained that he was moved to contest the seat because of his desire to offer quality service to the people of Abuja and to serve as a voice to the voiceless, adding that his mandate would be to repeal laws and policies that do not allow progress to serve everyone, especially the youths.
“The problems we are facing is affordable housing for young people. There are huge grants lying fallow at World Bank, IMF, name them. We can tap into these grants and begin to build and have affordable housing for young people so that young people with as little as N150,000 or N200,000 can pay for three-bedroom flat and they’re comfortable and they begin to plan their lives.
“Young people in their 30s are not even ready to get married. Most of them will grow up not seeing their children get married. Why? Because life has happened to them in Nigeria,” he added.
Obasi spoke about creating policies that will make Nigerians have access to quality healthcare.
“For people to have access to quality healthcare that means that their take-home pay must have a huge significance so young people should not be paid below N50,000 which is not up to a hundred dollars for a month. Our minimum wage must go up, N30,000 is not enough,” he said.
He added that he will pay more attention to youth development and capacity-building programmes if elected.
“Our young people should be able to put their businesses at the international scale. We shouldn’t be local anymore. People making shoes and bags should be competing with international brands, our people should be able to travel for events in other parts of Africa and the world to do make-up.
“Our people are talented so we need to put them on the global stage,” Obasi stressed.
Blessing Otoibhi is a Multimedia Journalist and Anchor host for the News in 60 seconds at The International Center For Investigative Reporting. You can shoot her a mail via Botoibhi@icirnigeria.org or connect on Twitter @B_otoibhi