Former Vice President and Presidential candidate of the PDP in the 2019 general elections, Atiku Abubakar has described the Buhari led government as incompetent and lacking capable hands and ability to think outside the box.
Atiku, in a long essay on how Nigeria and Africa can surmount the effects of the coronavirus, said that the oil crisis being faced by the Buhari administration was also faced by the Obasanjo administration. He, however, noted that there were two remarkable differences between both administrations. The first according to him was that they had a stellar cabinet between 1999 and 2007.
“We had the right people manning our economy. We certainly would not have proposed to take out a $500 million loan to digitalize the Nigerian Television Authority or devote N37 billion to renovate the National Assembly complex which was build from the scratch at less than 20% of that amount” said.
He maintained that the oil price crash should not be enough to trigger an economic crisis arguing that Nigeria’s 2020 budget was predicated on $57 but oil prices are now in the $30s range after falling into the 20s.
Atiku argued further that the situation does not call for panic. He said “after all, the current price of oil was lower than it is today when President Obasanjo and I assumed office on May 29, 1999; yet we paid off Nigeria’s entire foreign debts.
” Today’s Nigerian government is severely lacking in qualified hands and nothing proves this than the state of the presidency itself.
“To think that after devoting N13 billion to the State House Clinic in the last five years, it is virtually useless as we face the most significant public health challenge of our national life. This is a pointer to the state of our federal government” he submitted.
The former Vice President wondered why the current administration is always quick to seek foreign loans to solve domestic economic problems. According to him, this shows a lazy mindset and an inability to take those sacrifices necessary to get the economy into shape.
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