Former APC chieftain Patrick Utomi says Nigeria needs leaders who understand economics and how economies work to double output in production.

Mr Utomi said this in an interview in Lagos, noting that the tragedy of the current circumstance of huge unemployment and poverty, among others, needs people who understand what is “beyond to share” to tackle the challenges.

“We live in the age of knowledge capital, and knowledge is more valuable than any mineral resources. The struggle over these resources is distracting Nigeria from focusing on what matters with production,” said Mr Utomi. “No country has become wealthy from revenues; countries become wealthy from production.”

He further explained that Nigeria would need leaders with a clear strategy on how to get the country to begin to produce.

“Some parts of Nigeria have sesame seeds. Some have cocoa, and some have crude, among many other natural endowments. What to do is to take a certain number of this, each to every region and create clusters of industrial parks around those places,” he stated.

Mr Utomi, who recently met with the presidential aspirant of the Peoples Republic Party (PRP), Patience Key, said he was not opposed to a woman being the next president of Nigeria.

“Gender is just prejudice. We are all equally talented. So, anybody can make a difference. In Scandinavian countries such as Denmark and Finland, the cabinets are more than 50 per cent women under 40, including the prime minister, are doing well,” he reasoned. “So, I have all the confidence in the world that women can make a difference if allowed to rule.”

Ms Key stressed that Nigeria needed to be peaceful and free of insecurity if it must witness development and growth.

(NAN)