The African Democratic Congress, ADC has ramped up the heat on the federal government, which it criticized for ignoring the call by the Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to provide safety nets for suffering Nigerian masses because of the ongoing reforms.
ADC said rather than heeding to the real message by Okonjo-Iweala about the actual state of the Nigerian economy, the President Bola Tinubu-led administration decided to celebrate the headlines.
National Publicity Secretary of the ADC,
Bolaji Abdullahi said “government officials and their media surrogates have amplified only one soundbite from her remarks, where she credited the administration for stabilizing the economy, while deliberately ignoring her more serious call for urgent measures to grow the economy and establish social safety nets for millions of Nigerian families suffering the negative impacts of the government’s reforms.
“Okonjo-Iweala’s recent comments on President Tinubu and the Nigerian economy have been seized upon by government officials and media allies as if “their scandalous implementation of hard reforms, which have condemned the majority of Nigerians to absolute poverty and destroyed millions of jobs, had received endorsement by the oracle herself. This is not correct.
“She knows that economic stability that leaves the majority in grinding poverty is meaningless. Therefore, what she’s really saying which the government has chosen to ignore is that the economy is not growing, jobs are not being created, and too many people are suffering as a direct consequence of President Tinubu’s ill-conceived and badly implemented reforms. These are the issues she wanted the government to address.
“Like the international stateswoman that she is, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala prefaced her comments with the niceties befitting her stature by commending the administration for ‘stabilizing the economy.’ But, having done with that courtesy, she immediately highlighted the urgent need for job creation to bring succour to the ever-growing army of unemployed youths and others who lost their jobs as businesses shut down under the crushing weight of the Tinubu-led government.”
ADC said Nigerians know that celebrating the “mere appearance of stability” is not only pyrrhic but also dangerous.
“This is why, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala tweeted a clarification noting that Nigerians are experiencing hardship from President Tinubu’s reforms, and that putting in place more programs to help especially the poor and vulnerable manage this hardship is very important,” he added.
