For Oduduwanews Personality Interview, our team had a media chat with the Chairman of Waterfield Luxury Hotel, Akobo Ibadan, Mr Hamid Ismail.
Speaking on how hotel business is surviving, Mr Ismail stated that every business owner in Nigeria is only hopeful that thing will get better.
“Our big generator runs on 150litres of diseal for 24hrs, as at January, a litre was around N200, now it’s around N800 per litre, what is driving business owner in Nigeria is Hope”
Speaking about electricity, he decried the epileptic power supply, including the high tariff which has negatively affected the growth of businesses in the State.
Speaking futher, he appealed to the government to be tax friendly with hoteliers, and be magnanimous in their policy, most especially duplication and creation of unnecessary tax levies, like the emission control tax, among others.
Speaking about business development and expansion in Ibadan, Mr Ismail stated that the sons and daughters of Ibadan spread all over the world who are interested in the development of the city have been making alot of efforts towards that, and that’s evident in new buildings and structures that are all over the place for business development and growth of the city.
Speaking on the State of the Nation, Mr Ismail stated that the call for restructuring is a constitutional matter, and it’s only the National Assembly that can effectively initiate such process. He emphasized, that any promise by any president or presidential candidate on restructuring of the country is only making a promise which himself knows that can’t fly. That promise is usually made to cajole people and curry the people’s support during electioneeing time because there’s a limit to what executive order can do”
“Restructuring is a constitutional matter, and it’s only the National Assembly that can make that happen, the best any president can do is to follow former President Jonathan’s step by calling for a National Confab.
The document gotten and drafted by the people from their recommendations at the National Confab will still need to be forwarded to the National Assembly for a deliberation and must be supported by 2/3 of members, before passing it down to the State House of Assemblies”
As the former Director at the Central Bank of Nigeria, he discussed the exchange rate problem and gave insight on the Nigerian economy. He described multiple exchange rates we are operating and called for holistic approach to maintain equilibrium at the forex market.
He said, “most of the people at the helms of affairs lack patriotism which makes it difficult to put national interest first in their policy making”.
“Unstable exchange rate has been the genesis of the economic problem we are facing. A mismatch in current account balance leads to exchange rate problem and resultant effect on the prices of commodities”.