Tinubu’s government does not have what it takes to change the country’s economic problems in Nigeria – Suswam

Former Governor of Benue State and Senator who represented Benue North East Senatorial District in the 9th National Assembly, Gabriel Suswam, has said President Bola Tinubu's government does not have what it takes to change the economic fortunes of the country.

In an interview with Channels Television, Suswam said Tinubu's administration is bringing Nigerians down.

He said;

“Well, it is quite unfortunate since the Buhari administration where the mantra of 'Change' was the monotonous song. Unfortunately, people did not ask what kind of change he was bringing to governance. Is it a positive change or a negative change?” What we experienced in these eight years is what dovetailed with what we are experiencing today, because whatever base was built by the PDP was completely destroyed by that government (Buhari). It is unfortunate that the current leadership (Tinubu) does not have what it takes to change the economic fortunes of this country. All the economic policies they have adopted or have adopted clearly indicate that they can solve the economic problems of this country. : you remove subsidies from day one, now float your currency, increase the interest rate. Now, the electricity tariff has been increased from heavy and bad economic policies? transportation cost, production cost, because you are dealing with energy, now that has been removed. So, the person who sells food that he was now transporting perhaps from within Abuja at the cost of N5,000 now has to transport it at the cost of N15,000. Where do you think the cost will end up? For the consumer. Therefore, inflation in this country is at 31 percent. It's unprecedented!

Now, watch the currency fluctuate. There is no developing economy that has floated its currency and exited it, none. Is it Latin Americans? They do not have. In the 80s and early 90s, most of the problems in Latin American countries were the fact that they adopted very bad economic policies like the ones this current government is adopting – currency fluctuation, removal of subsidies here and there. ”

When asked if it was the alleged misgovernance of the PDP that brought about successive APC governments, he said;

“No, that argument is baseless. It is baseless in the sense that when President Goodluck left, what was the exchange rate of the naira? What was the pump price of petrol and diesel? What was the electricity tariff? What was the interest rate? So the argument is baseless; it's people who don't have the capacity who make excuses. If you give me a task and I don't have the capacity, I'll start making excuses. of capacity. the people appointed as ministers are people who do not have the capacity to occupy these positions. One would believe that the President, with the kind of people he selected in Lagos, would do the same in terms of getting people who understand what they are doing. Unfortunately, maybe it's a bigger environment and that's why it's different. When you have lieutenants who have no value to add, then there's a problem with that. I looked at the budget, for example. You have a budget that you know is basically not implementable ab initio, so how are we going to move forward because you have a deficit of almost 9 trillion naira right now? We have financing lines for this deficit that, by themselves, will not be achievable. So you can add that to the deficit because when you say that, you will sell government assets to finance the budget. Since 2019, when I was in the Senate, this has been a recurring tithe, year after year, they sell government assets to finance the deficit. You cannot perceive anything this way.

No, when you have a deficit of over 9 trillion naira, then the financing item of that budget is that you will borrow money, both internally and externally. Borrowing money internally means they will continue to print money, just as the Buhari government was doing. No matter what you try, (the value of your currency) will continue to depreciate when you print money. Not only that, you have moved forward to increase the electricity tariff. What will manufacturers do? Yes, they can pay this fee, but pass it directly to consumers. What is the earning capacity of an average Nigerian? So electricity alone costs about 10 times more than the minimum wage for an average worker in this country. How will the country function? These are some of the issues that concern the PDP and we believe that what we have done in the last 16 years, where at least we have a middle class in this country, has been completely eliminated. Now, we want to come back as one government under the PDP so that we can bring back those good old days and we can do so. The PDP has the resources to do this.”

Source: www.lindaikejisblog.com