Nigeria Can Only Truly Move Forward With Homegrown Solutions – Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari has emphasized that Nigeria’s challenges could only be solved by ‘homegrown solutions’.

Buhari said this while addressing the Presidential Economic Advisory Council on Wednesday in Abuja.

He noted Nigeria must domesticate her policies to Nigeria’s local reality.

The President said “We must domesticate our policies to reflect our local realities. While we very much welcome the cooperation and support we are getting from our friends abroad, it is important to make it clear that Nigeria can only truly move forward with homegrown solutions.”

Buhari also stressed the importance of accurate data collection to formulating adequate policies that would drive development in the country.

He further noted that, most data quoted about Nigeria were gathered by the western world. Adding that, those statistics were wild estimates compared to the reality of Nigeria’s situation.

Buhari said “This must extend to data collection as well. Today, most of the statistics quoted about Nigeria are developed abroad by the World Bank, IMF and other foreign bodies. Some of these statistics are wild estimates that bear little relation to the facts on the ground.”

The President further stressed that the country could only have realistic plans with reliable data. Adding that, his administration was taking serious steps to prioritized reliable data gathering for policy formulation.

“We can only plan realistically when we have reliable data. As a government we are taking very serious steps to improve the quality of data available for policymaking, and today I charged the Presidential Economic Advisory Council to prioritize the collection of Primary data,” Buhari said.