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| Senator Bukola Saraki |
A former Senate President, Bukola Saraki, one of the 15 presidential aspirants in the Peoples Democratic Party, says he is the best person to rule Nigeria from 2023.
In an interview with Premium Times, revealed that if elected president of Nigeria he will support digital currencies like Crypto and NFTs to help boost the nation’s economy.
When asked if he will explore the cryptocurrency sector like other countries to help economy he said: "I don’t think it will wreck the economy but I think like any of these new sectors, you need to have guidelines and regulations.
"I am not against it but I think we must look at it and see that it must be operated in a well-guided environment. There must be legislation and policies that ensure there is no abuse in the process whatsoever.
"I also think it has helped especially the young generation in creating jobs and opportunities. And anything that creates jobs and an enabling environment for people to do their businesses, I am in support of that.
"So, yes, I am in support of that. But again, we have to ensure that it is not abused and used as a source of money laundering or financing of terrorists and those are issues that we must address.
On plans to build 500,000 housing units every year for Nigerians he said: "We intend to build more houses. We think that targeting about 500,000 houses every year for the first four years, will go a long way. We also believe that there is a need to have home improvement.
"It is not just building a house, a lot of people are just living in slums and we think that there is a need for home improvement. So, we want to invest in improving even what we have.
"Part of the plan also will be to provide more money and strengthen the mortgage institutions so that they can provide funding for people to be able to build homes for themselves too. There are some we will build as a government, and some, we will provide funding for people to build.
When asked how he plan to achieve the housing scheme he said: "As a matter of fact, there are a lot of leakages in the system. Huge leakages in the system. I can see already how easily you can claw back close to N8-9 trillion. And that will help to increase revenue. That is one.
"Number two, also from value for money. We must review the Bureau of Public Procurement. Sometimes, we need to ask ourselves that with all the money that the government is spending, how come we don’t see a lot of these projects and the impact on the people? Because of the lack of value for money.
"If you do a value for money audit on these projects, what you find might be shocking. And you need to tighten those processes to ensure that a job that should cost N5 should really cost N5 and not N25. When you do that, all these leakages and excess expenditure in government will come down significantly. So you’ll have more money to do that.
"Number three, in infrastructure, you have to decide on what your priorities are. Things like housing have a multiplier effect. You provide a home for people, you also provide jobs – for those constructing. These are things you look at as opposed to some of the things that we are spending money on.
"Also in infrastructure, there are some areas that the private sector will be able to fund, not that the government needs to put money. For example, when I was Senate President, the Lagos-Ibadan road, if you check the news at that time, I had problems with a lot of politicians, they didn’t understand what I was trying to do.
"We were being asked to put N30 billion in Lagos-Ibadan road and I asked why should we do that? It is a road that the private sector supports. In the right environment, it is usually not government-funded. And they said ‘no, put it in the budget.’
"Look now, four years later, it is still not completed.
"There are some infrastructural projects that would happen, you can do them if you create an enabling environment and bring confidence in investment. Then some are for the government itself to do. For example, in power, in the transmission sector, government dues are so important. The government will have to fund that – whatever amount that is required. Those are investments that will pay off in the long run.