The National leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has said the problem of leadership in the country is not the lack of funds, but how funds are being utilized.
Tinubu who made the statement at the opening of the 2021 annual Arewa House Lectures, which he chaired on Saturday in Kaduna, said the many challenges facing the country today, is the result of government failure in tackling issues of poverty.
“The issue of insecurity, unemployment and extremism has many things to do with governance, over time. We must tackle our deep and widespread poverty," he said.
Speaking further, he cautioned against the assumption that government spending was unproductive, saying the focus should rather be on the quality of spending.
“The development of any populous nation has always been dependent on the ability of government to allocate sufficient funds to projects and programs that create and encourage enduring growth and employment.
“We must reject that mode of thinking that assumes government expenditure is inherently unproductive as well as harmful to the overall economy.
“It is not the fact that government expenditure is intrinsically wrong any more than one can say all private sector activity is economically positive.
“Government can be wasteful or it can be the key component to growth just as a private sector business can function profitably or spend itself into bankruptcy.
“The issue is not whether government is spending money or not. The real issue is the economic utility and quality of the expenditure.”
While urging for fiscal wisdom in running the nation’s economy, he said, “This means government must spend money on those things that bring the requisite economic returns for the nation.”