As resumption of the National Assembly draws near, the number of All Progressives Congress (APC) senators dissatisfied with the way the Presidency is handling the economy is increasing with each passing day.
President Muhammadu Buhari’s staunch supporters, some of who abandoned their constituency during the last general election and crisscrossed the country with the then candidate of the APC, are coming out of their shell to disown the President.
With the National Assembly set to resume from its annual recess on September 20, 2016 – nine days from now – and the forgery trial of Senate President Bukola Saraki, his deputy Ike Ekweremadu
billed to commence on September 28, one needs not study rocket science to predict that the number of senators in support of the President is dwindling.
Currently, the 103 upper legislative chamber is made up of 59 APC senators and 44 PDP legislators. Prior to the recess in July, opposition PDP senators had passed a vote of no confidence in President Buhari for the forgery trial of Presiding Officers of the Red Chamber.
On the other hand, APC lawmakers are peeved that 16 months into the life of the present administration, it is still blaming past PDP governments rather than face governance and fix the economic crisis plaguing Africa’s second largest economy. They expressed concern that the poor state of the economy has brought unprecedented hardship and hunger on the masses.
Recently, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) confirmed that Nigeria is in its worst economic recession in 29 years. According to the NBS, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) report for the second quarter of 2016, Nigeria’s economy contracted by 2.06 percent to record its lowest growth rate in three decades.
Chairman, Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debts, Shehu Sani fired the first salvo when he warned the President to put short-term measures in place to cushion the effect of the current economic crisis on the Nigerian masses or risk the people dying before he completes his reforms.
The APC lawmaker, who represents Kaduna Central in the National Assembly, disclosed that many lives would have been lost before the current reforms of the administration are completed.
According to him, “If you keep reforming and reforming and the people are suffering and dying, you may reach the Promised Land alone because by that time everyone has died. Of what use would that be?”
Sani, who criticised Buhari for not having an independent economic team to drive the economy out of recession, admitted that the goodwill the APC enjoyed at the 2015 general elections, which led to the emergence of Buhari as president, was waning fast.
This, he said, is in view of the increasing number of open letters on the hardships being suffered by Nigerians. He gave the seven stages of support the followers have for their leaders to include: ‘We support you; we stand by you and we are going to back you’; ‘We are advising you’; ‘We are cautioning you’; ‘We are warning you’; ‘We doubt you’; ‘You are incompetent’ and ‘You should go’!
The followers, he explained, are currently in the third stage.
To Dino Melaye (APC, Kogi West), the President should take urgent and drastic measures, including the immediate sack of three prominent members of his Economic Team as the solution-precedent to reboot the ailing economy.
The senator said President Buhari must shake up his cabinet and accused most of the members of gross incompetence, inexcusable ineptitude and a distressing lack of capacity to deliver on the mandate of their ministries and agencies.
Those to face the axe immediately if the economy must be effectively rebooted to deliver on the Change Agenda of the present administration, in the estimation of Melaye, include the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun; Budget and National Planning Minister, Udoma Udoma and the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele.
He further called on the President to immediately discountenance the Economic Team currently under the supervision of the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osibanjo “as their decisions will not be; and has never been respected by the economic managers and the bureaucracy in Nigeria”.
In its stead, Melaye urged the president to constitute an “Emergency Ad-hoc Economic Team” made up of all former ministers of finance, budget and national planning, CBN governors as well as members drawn from the academia with ‘deep knowledge of developmental economics to drive the economic revival programme’.
He urged Buhari to transit from mere rhetoric to drastic but positive action to save the economy from total collapse, pointing out that the ‘widely-acclaimed magical body language’ of Buhari has lost its efficacy, lamenting that the hunger in the land is real, pervasive, widespread and debilitating for the poor masses.
The politician expressed worry that he could be stoned by his constituents for the failure of the President to fulfill his campaign promises.
Last week, the Vice Chairman, Senate Committee on Communications, Solomon Adeola also added his voice to calls for the President to take urgent steps to address the economic recession the country is currently facing.
The APC lawmaker representing Lagos West Senatorial District, expressed concern that governments at all levels
are not tackling the economic woes with the urgency it requires.
While acknowledging that the recession at this time is not peculiar to Nigeria, Adeola said the difference is that not much is being done to assure the people that government is on top of the situation in terms of marshaling out implementable policies to address the plight of groups that are hardest hit by the recession.
Like Melaye, the senator regretted that the Economic Team of the Federal Government has failed in their approach in handling the economic crisis.
According to him, the Team should be out to be dishing out policy options and direction in form of palliative for the poor, bail out/loans for distressed organisations like Innosson Motors and airlines in dire straits.
He particularly singled out Adeosun, Udoma, Emefiele and Director General of Budget Office, Ben Akabueze, over their failure to initiate policies needed to revive the economy.
OWEDE AGBAJILEKE
