Nigeria’s Ekiti State Governor Ayodele Fayose, has asked President Muhammadu Buhari-led federal government to address the nation on the state of the economy and stop propaganda.
Speaking at the 22nd Convocation of the College of Education, Ikere Ekiti, on Friday, Fayose warned that unless drastic action is taken, the economy might collapse in the next three months, NewsNow reported.
Fayose lamented the deplorable state of the nation’s economy, noting that rather than address it, the All Progressives Congress-led federal government has been employing propaganda to deal with the issue.
He said: “This is the time for the federal government to come out and tell Nigerians about the state of the economy rather than employ propaganda.
“I foresee serious trouble ahead because in the next three months, the economy may collapse. Oil now sells in the region of $40 per barrel. Things have never been bad like this.” He decried that Ekiti people don’t pay taxes, wondering how government could work for the people with depleting allocation from the center.
Meanwhile, a coalition of over 60 Civil Society Organizations in Nigeria on Friday decried what they termed “steady and continuous decline of the Nigerian economy” under Buhari’s watch. The groups, at a strategy meeting they held in Abuja under the aegis of ýNigeria civil society situation room, said there was urgent need for Buhari to evolve a sustainable economic plan that will attract foreign investors into ýthe country.
The leader of the coalition and executive director of Policy and Legal Advocacy Center, Clement Nwankwo, said the “dwindling economic fortunes of Nigeria” could be a function of the inability of Buhari to appoint his ministers six months after he assumed office.
He said: “The major challenge we are currently facing is that we cannot see the urgency of ýthis administration to improve the situation. It was unfortunate that after the six months that it took to come up with list of proposed ministers, those we saw are those that have always been around the hood.”
