LAGOS NOVEMVER 29TH (URHOBOTODAY)-A lecturer in Delta State University, Abraka, Professor Peter Egbon, has decried the high level of poverty in the country despite the purported seven per cent growth in the economy recently announced by the Federal Government.
The don said the condition of living of Nigerians was nothing to write about, saying that the situation in the country was suffocating.
He stated this while delivering a lecture at the award ceremony organised by the Chemical Society of Nigeria, Delta State chapter at Effurun.
Egbon, whose talk cantered on being an entrepreneur, took the political class to task, asking why Nigerians should surrender their collective sovereignty to government without reciprocation from the government.
According to him, the insecurity, poverty, unemployment, among other ills plaguing the country were a result of a warped value system.
He bemoaned that no worker can depend on the monthly salary, noting that even the Small, Medium Enterprises were plagued with problems, advising that ‘’it is one thing to have knowledge but to be useful to yourself and society, you have to be street wise.
‘’To the ordinary Nigerian, vacancies for public sector jobs are near non-existent. With a mortality rate of about 80 per cent being recorded by small businesses, within the first five years of start up in Nigeria, there are increasing concerns on how the rate could be reduced on one hand and how to ensure sustainability of such businesses’’, he said.