SAN FRANCISCO, March 02, (THEWILL) – A former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo has pointed out that the governance style adopted by the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari is worsening the fragile economy of the country.
Admitting that the All Progressives Congress, APC-led administration inherited a bad state of things, he observed that the current government had made the economy several times worse than it met it two years ago.
Soludo, who spoke on Thursday at a public policy forum in Enugu organised by the African Heritage Institution, tagged “Big Ideas Podium”, disclosed that “Nigeria is now, some say, a fragile state, some say a failed state”.
He pointed out that it is not going to be a tea party to come out of the situation because there has not been a serious commitment to address the problems.
“Nigeria is not just in recession, but in a massive economic compression; it will be a miracle for the present APC administration to return this country to the dollar size it met in May 29, 2015, if it stays for eight years, that’s till 2023.
“It is business as usual, propaganda, lies, double-speak. The current government is fighting corruption, insecurity, but we say to them, enough of the blame game.
“They inherited a bad situation but they have made it several times worse; getting us out here is not a tea party. Nigerians should rise in unity, it should no longer be ‘let them’; only united citizens can rescue Nigeria out of this position,” he said.
The ex-central banker charged Nigerians to hold the government to fulfil all the promises made before the election, explaining that, “My idea is that of citizens united; we won’t get the leadership that we deserve; we won’t get the leadership that we want; we will get the leadership that we demand.
“They gave us manifestoes, promised a lot and we said ‘yea’; how many have gone back to check how far they are delivering on those promises? If any party implements 25 percent of its manifesto, Nigeria will get better.
“If you check any state run by APC, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) or All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), the three parties that have governors, can you spot any difference in any of those states that will distinguish one party from another? They are the same.
“APC said in its manifesto that it will restructure Nigeria, that Nigeria was not one, but after election, has anybody heard about it (restructuring) again? They control 23 states and the National Assembly, all they need is one more state to get the required 2/3; so they have what it takes, but they are not talking about it again.
“If we don’t rise to hold them by the jugular, Nigeria cannot go anywhere. We have to start preparing for a post-oil economy; insanity is to repeat the same thing over and over again and expect a different result.”
