Ahead of a change of government in Africa’s most populous nation, economic and financial experts, development practitioners and other high-level public and private sector representatives will convene in Lagos for a post-election symposium of Nigeria’s economy on Friday May 8, 2015, to explore the theme: ‘Option and Possibilities for Government Revenue Growth and efficiency: Options, Opportunities and Possibilities.’
Distinguished delegates are expected to appraise the current capacity and structure of Nigeria’s economy, whilst revealing existing and new revenue streams. The symposium will leverage on the wealth of experience of speakers and the audience to identify and document the structural changes needed to efficiently maintain these new revenue streams and ensure Nigeria moves markedly from its current status as a mono-economy built on Crude Oil.
Speakers confirmed for the symposium include: Dr. Yemi Kale, Statistician-General of the Federation, Nigerian Bureau of Statistics; Taiwo Oyedele, Partner, Tax and Corporate Advisory Services, Pricewaterhousecoopers LLP; Opeyemi Agbaje CEO, RTC Advisory and Olufemi Awoyemi, CEO, Proshare.
Others are: Tunji Lardner, Executives Director, WANGONet; Vincent Nwani, Director of Research and Advocacy, the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Ronke Onadeko CEO, Deltr Energy and Oluseun Onigbinde, Lead Partner BudgIT .
According to Oluseun Onigbinde, the Co-founder/Lead Partner of BudgIT: “The event will examine and document in detail how Nigeria can substantially improve her overall economic competitiveness, expand her non-oil revenue base, identify strategic sectors for investment, and enshrine a more efficient approach regarding the collection of taxes and government dues.”
Mr. Onigbinde said the symposium is timely because Nigeria must begin to emulate efforts of other resource-rich countries, where governments are “adapting and protecting economies from the vagaries of finite commodities like oil.”
He added that: “This symposium sets out to start a series of deliberations on how the incoming government can diversify Nigeria’s revenue base to deliver on majority of its campaign promises, and more importantly ensure that never again will our country be held ransom by the dynamics of the global oil markets.”
The main discussion themes that will be explored during the panel sessions are: Reviewing the structure and capacity of the Nigerian economy for improved government revenue,” and “Expanding Nigeria’s revenue base; developing strategies for efficiency and transparency.”
BudgIT confirms that there will be a live stream of the event, to enable Nigerians abroad to participate, and all outcomes of the symposium, including a detailed report of all deliberations will be made into a comprehensive document, which will be sent to Vice-President Elect Professor Yemi Osinbajo, the All Progressives Congress, as well as the Peoples Democratic Party and the National Assembly.
The event is organized by BudgIT – a civic organisation focused on making Nigeria’s budget and public data easily accessible. Development Diaries is a partner on the project. To follow the symposium on Twitter, follow @budgITng or the hashtag #NigeriaBeyondOil
About BudgIT:
BudgIT is a civic organization driven to make the Nigerian budget and public data more understandable and accessible across every literacy span. It’s innovation within the public circle comes with a creative use of government data by either presenting these in simple tweets, interactive formats or infographic displays.
BudgIT has the primary goal of use creative technology to intersect and drive civic engagement and institutional reform.
Website: www.yourbudgit.com, Twitter: @budgITng, Facebook: www.fb.com/budgITng
About Development Diaries:
Development Diaries is a Pan-African top provider of Third Sector updates and information. The platform provides objective analysis of social development trends, showcasing projects that work, why, under which conditions in Africa while giving global access to Africa’s development data and news feeds.
Development Diaries also helps development stakeholders develop right set of skills to engage the media professionally and to make an impact.
Website: www.developmentdiaries.com, Twitter: @Dev_Diaries, Facebook: www.fb.com/developmentdiaries