REVEALING: SOUTH EAST LOSES #30BN EVERY MONDAY-SIT-AT-HOME OBSERVANCE
A development expert, Dr. Chigozie Anarado, says southeast loses over N30billion any Monday the zone is shut down for activities due to alleged sit-at-home directive being carried out by some acclaimed members of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
According to Dr. Anarado, while the economies of other geopolitical zones are growing, that of the southeast is dwindling as a result of the sit-at-home.
He said both the public and private sectors recorded huge losess every Monday the southeast zone was shut down.
Dr. Anarodo said should the trajectory be left to fester for so long, the ripple effect would be destructive, which ultimately could lead to job losses, more restiveness and insecurity already festering all over the country.
“Anyday we sit-at-home on Monday, we loose a lot of things. The incremental addition we would have had on the economy of the zone would be lost, and it has been quantified to be in the range of N30billion on every Monday that we sit-at-home.
“These monies are not just government money. This is aggregation of both public and private sector finances that should have come out as the economic productivity of the region.
“First of all, the economy does not grow at the rate it supposed to grow, and if the economy is not growing, mind you, population will not stop growing, and if the economy is not growing at the rate above the population growth, there’s bound to be a lot of problem.
“Instead of having an expanding economy that will take care of those who are coming out of school and those who are ready to work, you will be looking at an economy that would be shedding the workforce, thereby putting more people into unemployment and you know the implication of that,” he pointed out.
Dr. Anarado further highlighted more dangers and implications of the Monday sit at home order in the zone.
These include job losses, widening the unemployment ratio, stifling the education sector in the zone as well as possible increase in criminal activities.
“We incur losses in the educational sector because people who go to school are not able to go to school.
“We incur losses in the fact that, because we loose money on Monday, the economy is no longer growing at the rate at which it supposed to grow and it would worsen the gap between the economic growth and population growth. The result is that, unemployment will increase.
“The unemployment will result in restiveness and insecurity because there are bulge of persons that are looking for work.
“Apart from those we’ve not employed, those who already have jobs are at risks and could certainly lose their jobs because organisations are not keeping up to their revenue and budget targets,”Dr. Anarado analysed.
The development expert said that as a resilient people, if the situation was reversed, and the people got back to work, while leaders with imaginative and visionary, mindset were elected, the zone had the potential to rule the country economically.
He appealed to the agitators to look for more strategic and progressive method to go about the struggle, emphasizing that shutting down the zone from economic activities was obsolete, counter productive and detrimental to the growth of the region.
Corroborating the views of Dr. Anarodo, a youth advocate and school administrator, Mr. Chukwuma Ephraim Okenwa, explained that the sit-at-home observation had a cumulative impact on the education sector and the economy of the region, especially those that depended on daily sales for survival.
“If the sit-at-home is allowed to continue, certainly that would mean more cumulative impact, which would be destructive.
“You’re talking about almost a collapse of 20% of the curriculum, collapse of 20% of the economic potential of the zone and this is happening in a time where the nation’s economy is struggling at all tiers of government.
“So that will increase the struggle and almost making the economy of the southeast helpless, so it’s ill advised,” Okenwa fumed.
Mr. Okenwa, called on members of IPOB to look for more constructive strategy, without destroying what the region achieved after the civil war.
The leadership of the proscribed Indeginous People of Biafra (IPOB) had repeatedly announced that it had cancelled the alleged sit-at-home directive but some yet-to-be-identified persons had continually enforced the order.