The Chairman of the New Peoples
Democratic Party, Alhaji Abubakar Kawu Baraje, has condemned the rape of the
country’s economy by the Goodluck Ebele Jonathan administration.
He said that despite claims to the contrary
by the government in a futile bid to deceive Nigerians, the overwhelming
evidence was that the Nigerian economy had been run aground and was
now comatose.
An online agency, Sahara reporters,
said the assertions were contained in a statement issued by the faction
in Abuja, and signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Chukwuemeka
Eze.
It drew attention to the massive
scale of officially-induced oil theft, the dwindling returns from oil and
massive looting going on at the federal level as evidence that Nigeria was on
the brink of economic collapse.
“One manifestation of this is the
Federal Government’s inability to pay states their share of the Federal
Allocation since July. The last time that states were paid was for part of
July.”
Baraje further noted that the
arrears had continued to mount daily. “As at today, the states are being
owed N336 bn, with the N75bn being the balance of the July 2013 arrears, N121
bn from June augmentation and over N90bn as July augmentation.
“The implication of this unfortunate
development is that the 36 states have become impoverished and unable to meet
up with basic obligations, including the payment of workers’ monthly salaries,
which many of the states have been unable to do due to lack of funds.”
The New PDP added that
the states had also been unable to meet their obligation to contractors, a
scenario that is complemented by the growing rate of unemployment, which
presently hovers around 80 per cent.
“Let us ponder this: If states
cannot pay their contractors – not to talk of entering into new contracts – if
states cannot pay their workers because there is no money to pay them, what
could result is a huge social catastrophe that will add to the social, economic
and political inferno already ravaging Nigeria today.
“All these portend very grave danger
for our dear country as youth and labour restiveness appears imminent.”
The party warned Nigerians to expect
deterioration in the unemployment situation which is inevitable should the
Federal Government continue with the present shoddy management of the economy
which leaves much room for abuse.
“Ironically, while the masses
suffer, government officials continue to feed fat, using various guises to
fritter away our common patrimony,” Baraje said, adding that Nigerian
leaders’life of opulence had blinded them to the realities of the
monumental suffering to which the masses were being subjected on a daily basis.
“Where has all the money gone? For
an instance, the Central Bank of Nigeria had revealed that the country earned
a total of N1.05 trn in July, but surprisingly, the minister had not been able
to pay states their due statutory allocations. Where are the billions of
dollars accruable from daily crude oil sales?
Source:
PUNCH
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