An Abuja based Developmental Economist, Katch Ononuju, has accused President Muhammadu Buhari of driving the nation into recession, in bid to achieve a Northern agenda. According to Ononuju, the North in the past 16 years of unbroken democracy, felt they did not benefit from the economic expansion during the privatization of the nation’s major sectors, as they were marginalized in the banking sector by the South.
He argued that under former President, Olusegun Obasanjo’s regime, the North were of the believe that most of the companies, such as the then Nigerian Electricity Power Authority, NEPA, the Telecommunication sector, NITEL, Oil and Gas Concession in the downstream petroleum sector, and the Nigerian Port concession, did not benefit the North, as they were denied access to huge finance to purchase these companies, due to their marginalization in the banking sector.
Explaining further, he said also, in former President, Goodluck Jonathan’s regime, the privatization of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, to DISCOS and GENCOs, among several others, were perceived to have solely benefited the South.
And as such, President Buhari has deliberately allowed the economy to sink further, in a bid to re-acquire these companies, through the Asset Management Cooperation of Nigeria, AMCON, for onward redistribution in favour of the North.
He said, “In my own submission the reason why he wants the economy to fail, as he complained that the 16 years of economic expansion did not expand to include the advantages of the North, is in an attempt to calibrate and use the recession to give AMCON the opportunity to reacquire all those assets, for onward redistribution to his own kinsmen.
“I think his present economic policies are teleguided to out-rightly distort the asset distribution in the country, to the advantage of the North. “If for 8 months you have a car that is bad, and you keep driving it without taking it to the mechanic to fix it, you want that vehicle to fail. “If for 8 month you see a garden grown with grasses, and require and urgent attention, and you don’t attend to the garden, of course what you are trying to do, is to kill the crops, that is why the economy has failed, and we are where we are now.
“What I see now, is that they might start targeting their redistribution strategy, by taking over the banking sector, because you need huge funds to acquire such assets during redistribution,” Ononuju added. It could be recalled, that the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, had officially declared that Nigeria is in recession, on Wednesday. Inflation on the other hand, was pegged at 17.1 percent in July, from 16.5 percent in June, with the Gross Domestic Product, GDP, figures for the second quarter of 2016, dropping from -0.36 per cent in the first quarter, to -2.06 percent year-on-year. Source; post-nigeria.com
Comments
Post a Comment