President Muhammadu Buhari said these yesterday in Abuja at the opening of the 15th Annual Banking and Finance Conference organised by the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN).
Represented by the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, the President, who focused on climate change, noted that “long-term greenhouse emissions have resulted in hotter temperatures, more severe rainstorms, increased drought and food security issues”.
He added: “To tackle this issue, the government has set plans in motion to significantly reduce greenhouse emissions from Nigeria. More specifically, by 2030, we aim to eliminate Kerosene Lighting as well as short-lived pollutants in the oil and gas sector.”
President Buhari promised that his administration would continue to cushion the adverse effects of inflation through its social safety net programmes.
The President stressed that for a developing country like Nigeria, the effects of inflation were felt more strongly by less privileged citizens.
He attributed the raging inflation across the world to pent-up consumer demands after the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Speaking to the theme of the conference: Repositioning the Financial Services Industry for an Evolving Glocal Context, the President noted that “in the new ‘glocal’, repositioning the finance services industry involves valuable innovations to ensure global solutions reach local indigenous customers”.
To reposition itself, President Buhari urged the Finance sector to “serve, not just as an intermediary for lenders and borrowers, but in creating a new ecosystem consisting of platforms where ordinary Africans can buy and sell their locally made products, despite currency disparity as being practiced on the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), a brainchild of Afrexim Bank”.
