Henry Oduah
Reporter
President Muhammadu Buhari’s economic policy is reactive, and therefore ineffective, says Martin Onovo, the presidential candidate of the National Conscience Party (NCP) in the 2015 election.
“It would be easy to get light at the end of the tunnel if only we would be clear with our economic objectives, plan and implement prudently.
“But unfortunately, as we said in January, the government has no clear economic direction,” Onovo told TheNiche in an interview in Lagos.
“The economic policy is reactive and is principally an incompetent trial and error approach that has also a deep streak of flip flop.”
He noted that Buhari has gone back on campaign promises, recalling that “the government said it would not increase fuel price, but it did by about 70 per cent.
“The government said it would not devalue the naira, it has devalued the naira by more than 50 per cent.”
The country is in a recession, Onovo stressed, and 22.5 million Nigerians are currently unemployed, the highest figure in 20 years.
“So what we have seen is the destruction of the Nigerian economy. We clearly predicted that the APC [All Progressives Congress] was deliberately destroying not only Nigerian economy but also Nigeria as a country.
“We said that in January. Today, I don’t think anybody can dispute that position because we were very clear.”
Onovo criticised the government for dragging the country into recession with inflation now in double digits, the first time since 2005.
“Right now with the level of poverty and inflation in the country with a bag of rice at N18,000 from N8,000 that is more than 100 per cent in a season where the government is unable to pay wages.
“You can see the triple tragedy that the APC has brought on the Nigerian people.
“You can see the level of poverty, you can see that from your immediate environment, as Rev Fr [Ejike] Mbaka said, the mortuaries are full.
“People are dropping dead because of the economic situation. Two people in my neighbourhood have dropped dead and this is the reality of the recession that the incompetence and lack of patriotism of the APC has led Nigeria to.”