Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa has come out to urge the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) and other professional bodies to explore new corridors of national planning.

He recently revealed this when he received the 56th President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) Dame Onome Adewuyi and her delegation at Government House, Asaba.

According to him, such a move by our professional bodies will definitely help with the further development of Nigeria’s economy, so it is very important.

He then hailed the role accountants play in the development of the nation’s economy, challenging them to come up with ways to uplift the nation from its current economic challenges.

His words, “There has to be a mix between recurrent expenditure and capital expenditure. If we spend all our monies on recurrent expenditure without having a reasonable amount for capital expenditure, we will not be doing any good to the state and to our nation.”

“The impact is not only on the states; at the level of Federal Government, it’s quite a problem because today, we are almost living virtually on borrowing to be able to execute capital projects.”

“It’s a problem all of us have to look into and it’s something you can look into and offer your advice to both the Federal Government and the states.”

“The challenge is there but there must be a process to address it on a gradual basis, because if we do not do so, we will be getting to a situation where we definitely embarrass ourselves as a nation and we hope that we don’t get to that point in the history of this nation.”

“Nigerians need to think about what we can do because we are busy everyday planning our expenditure without planning the population of the nation.”

“A nation that continues to plan without planning its population is a nation that is not truly planning at all. It’s a big problem because we are in a nation today where our economy is dwindling.”

“We are not expanding the economy the way we thought we should be able to do, and then the economy is growing at a very low rate and the population of the nation is growing at a very high rate.”

“There is no level of planning, no matter how intelligent that person is, that you can truly plan in such a space. I believe that it’s something that all of us who have the knowledge of planning must speak out to let this nation know that wherever we are at the moment there is need to begin to look very closely inward.”

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Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa (born 8 July 1959) is a Nigerian politician who is the incumbent Governor of Delta State. He was inaugurated as a governor on 29 May 2015 after winning the state elections conducted in April 2015. Before his governorship, he was elected senator for Delta North Senatorial District in Delta State, Nigeria, in the April 2011 national elections.

He ran on the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) platform. He is an Ika from Owa-Alero in Delta State, Nigeria. He is also the first person from Anioma to clinch the governorship position of Delta State. He was re-elected as the governor of Delta State on May 29, 2019.

Okowa was born at Owa-Alero in Ika North-East Local Government Area of Delta State. He attended Edo College, Benin City (1970–1976), then went on to the University of Ibadan where he studied Medicine and Surgery, graduating in 1981 with an MBBS degree.

After leaving the National Youth Service Corps, he worked with the Bendel State Hospitals Management Board as a Medical Officer. He entered private practice as Director, Victory Medical Centre, Igbanke in 1986.