Posted by From Kola Ologbondiyan in Abuja on
Senate Committee on Industries Chairman, Senator Kola Ogunwale, yesterday said the Senate would soon receive a bill to ban the importation of manufactured goods which can be produced within the country.
Senate Committee on Industries Chairman, Senator Kola Ogunwale, yesterday said the Senate would soon receive a bill to ban the importation of manufactured goods which can be produced within the country.
Ogunwale, who made this revelation during a chat with newsmen in his office at the National Assembly, Abuja, noted that such goods would include Tokunbo vehicles, textiles and others that 'we have produced before in this country which we now expend huge sums in foreign currencies to import."
Lamenting the state of the nation's manufacturing and industries sector, Ogunwale said, but for the benevolence of President Olusegun Obasanjo, he ought to have shut the nation's borders against the importation of all kinds of manufactured goods that can be produced within the country.
Recalling that India once shut her borders for eight years to allow her citizens bring out the best in them in the area of manufacturing, Ogunwale said 'India is reaping the benefits of their hard decision then because today, they are in the space."
'We will soon come up with a bill that would help the near-total ban on manufactured goods in the Senate," he said.
Commenting on the alleged plot to extend the tenure of Obasanjo, the Senator said if the move to amend the constitutional tenure from four to six years is carried, 'it will call for a rethink to see where the six-year term would start from. And if we will have six-year tenure for the Presidency, what would be wrong with starting it from the South-west?"
Ogunwale argued that Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) 'Tsunami" rally held in Lagos penultimate week swept the illegal 37 local governments created by Governor Bola Tinubu.
'The Tsunami has forced the governor to revert to the old local governments. It has swept away the illegal 37 local governments he (Tinubu) created in Lagos State," he said, adding that 'with the differences that caused PDP's defeat in Lagos resolved, Alliance for Democracy would be swept off the state in the next election."