Former APC, governorship aspirant in Benue state, Nath Apir has said
that Nigerians are currently regretting that they voted President Buhari
into office. According to Vanguard, Apir said this in a media chat with
newsmen in Makurdi, Benue state yesterday September 1st.
"During the last administration. Our economy was performing above
average. This government came in and because every government comes in
to fix the problems of the previous government. It took Presidemt Buhari
six months to appoint Ministers in a country where, whether rightly or
wrongly was rated by the World Bank and the IMF as Africa’s largest and
number one economy.
We did not get that rating through bribe. On coming
to government it behoved this administration to inflate the tyres that
were low on air pressure, grease those bearings that needed to be oiled
so that we don’t grind to a halt just like we are in now. Our country is
in shambles, the people can hardly feed, the Naira has crashed to over
N400 to the Dollar. They talk of recovering money from looters and we
have not seen where the monies have gone to. Where exactly are the three
or five key pillars of the economic policies of the APC government?
Agree that there are issues of militancy in the south south, other
governments also faced same challenge. Buhari came in with a military
mentality to crush them. Look, civilized people negotiate, they don’t do
that because they are weak. They do that because they know that you
cannot go forward in a situation of crisis and chaos. He has just
aggravated our economic situation in the country. Six months no Minister
and the country was drifting and has not recovered till today and he
has brought us to this level. Nigerians are regretting voting Buhari,
that is the truth. All his policies had been anti corruption, by the
time he came in as military ruler in 1983 we resorted to the purchasing
of essential commodities. We are back to that vicious circle. We are
back to anti corruption war without real economic policies. Let me tell
you, western countries are neck deep in corruption. Don’t be deceived,
they have been receiving stolen monies from Africa without questioning
the sources of such wealth. Today we are asking for the return of those
monies and they are asking for proof that the monies are our own when
they did not ask the alleged thieves where they got the monies from.
These are basic things we should know, they use the monies to develop
their economies. President Buhari’s war on corruption is excellent and I
support it, but he must not use his anti corruption war to destroy the
country’s economy. He should strengthen institutions to fight
corruption. You want to fight corruption go after bankers, permanent
secretaries as well, don’t just go after only highly exposed political
people. These people cannot transfer monies without the banks. Permanent
secretaries are the accounting officers of their offices. How come they
are not being held to account. “The economy is in shambles and he has
no solution. The experience of the Finance Minister is low. Who is
running this economy. You cannot assemble a group of yes sir people and
expect good results. No one to challenge you. An educated man said, ‘we
are all ignorant of everything except in that which we know’, that is
why you need great minds around you as a leader. So our country is in
recession, though I’m not surprise because we had same in 1983 to 1985.
Who is running this economy? As a President he is looking at a maze but
you cannot read or lead the economy inside that maze without anybody
interpreting it to you, it’s a matrix. Buhari has to reorganize his
administration, he has to push out those who obviously have no business
in the government, corrupt and inefficient people are everywhere in this
government they must leave now to save our country.”he said
