A political analyst Mr. Obinna Oduche has x- rayed the problems of Nigeria and concluded that the solution “lies in the emergence of a selfless and visionary leader. Until this happens the country will continue to move in a circle 63 years after independence. “
Mr. Oduche said this while on a daily discussant programme titled: ” Now Streaming” on Advent Cable Network Nigeria Television ACNNTV in Abuja.
He declared: “The problem we have in this country is that our leaders are selfish and not honest, they see the people as slaves that they can treat anyhow that is why our leaders take themselves as number one, it is the citizens who should be number one on their priority list.
“The problem is they prioritize themselves first and take everything that is meant for the people, At the end of the day, they will throw empty promises and the masses will be suffering.”
He averred that our leaders to date “are the corrupt ones, they destroyed the economy and brought us to where we are today, and yet they are telling us to sacrifice.”
Mr Oduche said: “As a leader, If you know you cannot fix Nigeria, leave it and go to your house, because nobody begged you to come and lead, you decided that you are going to lead, so lead and stop the blame game.
“A right-thinking government can not come and start climbing the ladder from up to down.
Because what is happening in Nigeria today is that the government is climbing the ladder from up to down and while you are climbing the ladder from up to down, definitely the person will crash, that is where Nigeria is going.” He declared.
He pointed out that: “Already before this government took over, we have a high level of inflation of about 17.17%, level of inflation in Nigeria. Nigeria was almost going into recession before this government took over. But what are we now seeing? When the government came, they have already increased the rate of inflation.
“Any country that is not a producing country never undervalues its currency, because if you undervalue your currency it is going to tell badly on the country. After all, you don’t produce.
“It’s only a producing country that can devalue their currency and other countries will start crying. Just like what China did some time ago, they devalued their currency and America started crying because it’s going to affect America.
” They don’t need anything from you If you are a producing economy, you don’t need anything from outside. Whatever you need, you produce it in a country. So, you can decide to do whatever you want to do with your currency.
“But now, instead of stimulating the economy, for the economy to be a producing economy, you are bent on trying to destroy the economy by floating our currency. How can it help us? It can not help us. That’s why about 30 million Nigerians are going to be poor, They are already poor. governance is not about being a bully.”
He said the independent marketers have told us that by this month petrol would likely rise above 700 naira per litre which “means it’s going to double the pain. You see, let me explain these baby steps of pains of the masses”
One of them he said “is the proposed vat, another one is the new electricity tariff, and another one is the student loan scheme. You know, this student loan scheme which is a scam, that they want to use to remove the government from investing in education? “
He regretted that the government wasnot able to create an enabling environment for Nigerians to thrive. “if you give them an enabling environment, they can create opportunities and transform this country.”
Mr Oduche said the government of Nigeria “is very lazy. What they do is that they collect our money from the oil, share, finish it before the month runs out and wait for another one to come. They are lazy and at the end of the day, when the economy falls, when everything crashes, they will throw it on the citizens.”
Nigeria he said “have what it takes to develop our country but what we don’t have is good governance to develop the country. Nigeria is not safe in fact, security is zero which discourages foreign investors from coming into the country.”
In conclusion, he said “In my opinion what this government would have done was when they came into power it should have tried stabilize the economy, and fix our security, do the things that will alleviate the problems we are currently facing and you will see that subsidy will go naturally. It will not be announced as subsidy as well because if we produce, our products like fuel, diesel; there will be an increase in employment opportunities and development for our people and at the same time, the cost will be low.”
