- says Nigerians care more about bread and butter
- criticises purchase of new presidential jet
Ex-Cross River State Governor, Donald Duke, on Friday urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to revisit and reconsider some of his economic policies.
Also, he criticised the purchase of a new presidentoal jet when Nigerians are hungry.
He noted that whatever policy the government is implementing should be about the people first.
Speaking as a guest on Inside Sources with Laolu Akande, that was aired on Channels Television on Friday, the former Governor said President Tinubu made the “fundamental error” of removing subsidies on petrol and electricity at almost the same period.
He stressed the need for the government to make the economy work for the people.
“What we are doing to our people is just not sustainable. We’ve got to revisit all those policies and put our people first. And this is not (about) subsidy, this is about enhancing the productivity of our people.
“If you reduce energy prices and people become more productive, the economy will grow even further,” he said.
Duke identified the factors driving inflation in Nigeria to include high energy costs, over-inflated contracts, ill-distribution of wealth and high interest rates.
According to him, most Nigerians care about their daily bread and butter more than the act of governance, so it is the responsibility of those in power to ensure that the citizens are okay.
“We need to get the economy working for the people. That’s the bottom line. At the end of the day, people don’t care about how they are governed as much as they care about bread and butter.
“The function of a government is to ensure the productivity of its citizens within an orderly environment. If you look at the unemployment ratio of our country, we are largely unproductive; the dependency ratio is high,” Duke submitted.
The former Governor also decried the over-dependence of Nigeria’s economy on imports, saying the leaders need to take advantage of the large population to ensure a productive economy.
“Over 60% of the pressure on our foreign exchange earnings is oil import, if you can domesticate that, the exchange rate will dramatically drop.
“Even beyond that, we need to question the things we import. We are running an import-dependent economy which is wrong. With 230 million people growing every year, we need to run a productive, manufacturing, agrarian economy. We are not doing that. We, literally import everything at the expense of our people,” he said.
He said it is a failure of leadership for President Tinubu to buy a new jet for his office when Nigerians are going through an economic crisis.
Duke said, “There is no glamour in saying your people are going through hard times. It’s a failure of your leadership. If I’m the head of a family, I want my family to have everything. I don’t want life to be difficult for them.
“If life is difficult then I feel I’ve failed to provide for them or do the things I ought to have done. I’d ask him (Tinubu) to see the Nigerian nation as his family. What is good for his family is good for the nation.
“Buying a new aircraft or yacht or living large is a failure. You can’t have kids who are hungry and you are living lavishly, going to parties and wearing the biggest agbada.”
Duke said the recent #EndBadGovernance nationwide protests by hungry Nigerians showed that the President has not been a good father to Nigerians.
The former governor said, “A protest is like your kids coming to tell you that ‘Daddy, I am not happy with you. You have failed to do this and do that for me.
“I’d ask him (Tinubu) to rethink a number of things that are going on and test his policies. The policy of floating the currency was a mistake because it wasn’t thought through.
“The largest pressure on the Nigerian currency is the importation of fuel, and the way it is being done, it is fuelled by corruption. So, we are paying the price for it.”
Duke tasked the President to hold security agencies responsible, reform the judiciary, and address the economy with local indigenous solutions, far from those of the Bretton Woods system.
NaijaNews
