The coalition African Democratic Congress, ADC has criticized the Federal Government for ignoring the call by the Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to provide safety nets for suffering Nigerians due to the ongoing reforms.
ADC said instead of listening to the real message by the WTO DG, about the state of the Nigerian economy, the Federal Government choose to celebrate only the headlines.
Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, National Publicity Secretary of the party 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.”
SPONSOR AD
ADC noted that the celebration of the headlines reflects a government in desperate need of validation, rather than one focused on the job at hand.
Part of the statement said, 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.”
The coalition said Okonjo-Iweala knows that a stable economy is one that is able to guarantee minimum standards of living for the people.
“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.”
She said the government needs to urgently grow the economy to put money in people’s pockets — which means that whatever “stable economy” the government is celebrating has not translated into real relief for hundreds of millions of Nigerian families, and they need to change course.
Explaining further, 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.
She further stressed that “At the same time, it is necessary to start work on growing the economy to create more jobs and put money in people’s pockets.”