Nigerians should patronise Made-in-Nigeria Goods – Heritage Bank boss

By Chioma Obinagwam

The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Heritage Bank Limited, Mr. Ifie Sekibo has advised Nigerians to always patronise locally made goods and services so as to stimulate growth in the economy and preserve the foreign exchange.

Sekibo, said this during the presentation of the Gold Sponsorship award for 2015 to Heritage Bank by the Finance Correspondents Association of Nigeria (FICAN) at the bank’s head office in Lagos recently.

He stressed the need for FICAN members to drive the conversation for Nigerians to change their lifestyles.

He said: “We can’t grow an economy where all we want to spend on are dollar-denominated and foreign goods. Left for Nigerians, they want to be doing all their spending on dollars, forgetting that dollar is not our local currency. Everything they do with dollar gives employment to somebody in another country and not in Nigeria. So, we must continue to have that conversation and it must be robust.”

“So, it is important as a people to begin to educate our fellow Nigerians on these things and it is the financial correspondents that must drive this, because this is a very serious issue and if we don’t, we would all regret it. You have members in print, electronic and online, if with 100 people on your platform alone, you can drive this change,” he continued.

He, however, commended FICAN for the award and pledged his continued support for the association.

“You have been covering the sector for a while and we believe that it is our responsibility to ensure that the quality of information that comes from people that cover the sector is useful to the public and you have done a good job in doing that,” he said.

“So, we will continue on that to ensure that we improve on the ability of journalists to report the industry. This award will spur us to do more. This is an encouragement for us to engage more with you, especially when we begin to discuss financial inclusion and expanding the space of excluded people,” he added.

He also stressed the need for increased awareness on financial inclusion in order to bring more Nigerians into the financial system.

“The ball is shifting; the days when only the formal sector should understand finance are over. Everybody should begin to understand finance. They should understand how they spend their money, why we need to save and we need to teach our children why they need to save from now. These are some of the conversations we need to have to ensure that we promote financial inclusion. As journalists, we need to be able to educate people on why they should save money and how they can save and the need for us to spend in line with our budget as individuals,” he disclosed.