The Deputy National Secretary of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, Comrade Jerry Obasi, on Tuesday pronounced Nigeria’s economy “clinically dead”, calling on President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to urgently seek the help of economic surgeons.
Obasi, who was the APGA’s deputy governorship candidate in the last general election in Ebonyi State, accused the President of junketing around the world whereas his house was on fire.
Speaking in an interview with DAILY POST in Enugu, the APGA chieftain urged the government to convoke an economic summit in order to save the country from descending further into the abyss.
He spoke thus: “What is going on this country is quite unfortunate; I have been on the queue for two days to get fuel, in Nigeria, the fourth oil producing country in the entire world, whereas in non-oil producing countries, there are no queues.
“In fact, I supported Buhari in this election, I had to go against my family and party to support Buhari in that election, because of the state of affairs under Jonathan, considering the fact that Enugu-Onitsha Express Road was impassable for six years, and we had a President; also Enugu-Port Harcourt Road was not done, all the roads in the South-East and South-South were not done for the six years, I was using these small indices because Igbos are traders, so they need these roads; I got disappointed and I said I was not going to vote for Jonathan, he disappointed my people, six years would have been enough. To me it was crass failure, even when it is believed today by Nigerians both at home and in the Diaspora that Buhari has failed, his failure can’t make Jonathan to have succeeded.
“The truth remains that the economy is in a very bad shape, the economy has been battered, it has been given a technical knock-out, the type that Tyson used to give to his opponents in his time, the economy has gone extinct, and just like the statement made by Lai Mohammed that the economy has overtaken the government, though he has come back to retract that, but he has made a confessional statement, because tomorrow he will still tell Nigerians that he said it; the economy to me, has been destroyed, you cannot bring a clerk in a micro finance bank in the UK to come and superintend over Nigeria’s economy, it is not going to take us anywhere. Nigeria needs an economist in the mold of Okonjo Iweala, an economist in the stature of Oby Ezekwesili, in the stature of Soludo, in the stature of Kaku Idika Kaku. These appointments of Buhari that are more political and sentimentally minded will take us to the abyss. The government is already collapsing on him, and I will advise once again for him to convoke an economic summit, because Nigerian and her economy is in comatose, it is in an intensive care unit of economic hospital that also needs intensive care by economic surgeons, but if we go the way we are going, I see dark days ahead, I see terrible days ahead.
“Are we to talk about the N5,000 promise, we are not talking about the fuel they said will be sold an N40, even at 180, you cannot but fuel anywhere, if you go to Malawi, South-Africa, Ghana, you cannot see queue, so it is unfortunate, the president should wake up, he should reduce his level of travelling, you don’t visit economies that are stable whereas at home, the economy is dying on your lapse, let us come out of these sentiments, the APC should understand now that it is the ruling government, may be they forgot that they are ruling, still sounding like the opposition. Buhari’s appointments are summersault appointments; you see a professor working under a first degree holder, let us look inside, management of the country is different from a religious body, it is different from a tribal organization, it is different from the opposition mentality, it is so far so bad, all of us can see it, we can’t but food. The country has become too hot for all of us.”
