Martins Ifijeh
A former media aide to former President Goodluck Jonathan, Reno Omikro, has said instead of President Muhammadu Buhari to stick to the quarrel he is having with Ohanaeze Ndigbo, he has continued to drag Jonathan into matters he knows nothing about.
He said the Senior Special Adviser to the President, Shehu Garba, was quoted to have said President Buhari inherited a country whose economy, security and social relations were in tatters, and that Buhari deserves credit for rebuilding what has been destroyed.
“But no less a personality than the president’s own confidante, Professor Itse Sagay, has revealed that the All Progressive Congress (APC) is an ‘evil’ party, built on propaganda,†adding that the recent statement by Garba only serves to corroborate Sagay’s statement.
He said for one, President Buhari did not inherit a country in tatters, but that on May 29, 2015, the day he was sworn in, the president inherited a nation that was the largest economy in Africa and the 24th largest economy in the world.
“By the testimony of CNNMoney, he inherited an economy that was the third fastest growing economy in the world, with only China and Qatar growing faster. By the testimony of the British Government, he inherited the fourth fastest growing economy in the world. Whether you take the testimony of CNNMoney or that of the U.K. government, the fact is that we were one of the world’s most progressive economies.
“Also, on May 29, 2015, President Buhari inherited an economy that by the evidence of the World Investment Report, prepared by the Geneva-based United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad), the number one destination for foreign direct investment in Africa,†Omikri said
He said the various scores showed that Buhari inherited an economy with a stable currency where the naira exchanged for N199 to $1 and in which Nigeria had a single digit inflation rate.
According to him, this is in addition to over $30 billion in foreign reserves, $5.6 billion NLNG dividends and a 2015 budget of over N4 trillion which were handed over to the incoming administration by the outgoing Jonathan government.
While stating that the facts could be verified even on google, he noted that within just six months of his swearing-in as president, the Buhari’s administration negatively turned the table around in the most remarkable display of ineptitude ever seen in modern political history, to such an extent that from the third fastest growing economy, Nigeria entered into a recession.
“Also, from being the top destination for foreign investment, Nigeria experienced unprecedented capital flight because of the Buhari administration’s Stone Age voodoo economics, which, according to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, led to a job loss of six million jobs and the closure of thousands of manufacturing firms and other concerns in the real sector.
“It should be noted that from being one of the best performing currencies in the world under President Jonathan the naira, by evidence of Bloomberg, was the world’s fourth worst performing currency in 2016 having lost more than 100 per cent of its value under Jonathan,†he said.
Omikro, explained that when President Jonathan was tackling the Boko Haram insurgency, he did not blame or accuse Northern elders.
“He did what he was elected to do without abdicating his responsibility. Today, it is quite sad that President Buhari, who never offered to help during the Boko Haram crisis, now declares that he is ‘disappointed’ in the leaders of the South-east for not reining in the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). Pray, whose job is it to tackle security challenges between an elected president and an unelected council of elders?†he queried.
The former presidential aide said the Buhari administration would do well to explain why the United States Congress declared Nigeria “the most dangerous place for Christians in the world†on February 4, 2017 or why the World Economic Forum listed herdsmen as the fourth most deadly terrorists in the world, meanwhile to the Buhari regime, they are merely ‘criminals’?
“Rather than inherit a country in tatters, it is precisely President Buhari who has bequeathed a country and an economy in tatters to future generations.
He advised President Buhari to work to win the hearts of those who rejected him during the election instead of cooking up schemes to get his revenge against them.
