The Shadow Cabinet of Nigeria has called on the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and President Muhammadu Buhari to settle down to the real business of governance, seven months after it had wrestled power from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
In a statement released by the group in Abuja, it stated that the ruling party and its elected officials need to stop acting like a group of people in a rudderless ship with a proclivity for post shifting.
The spokesperson of the group also added, ”It is befuddling and the height of insensitivity, how an administration can be so imperceptive to the plight of the people it leads.
There have been feelers from civil society organizations, technocrats, and critics alike, that the Nigerian economy is at the brink of an impending doom, yet no actionable masses-centric cause, public policy, or palliative have been provided.”
The group therefore asked if the APC led Federal government is poised on seeing our prestigious economy nosedive into devastation and ruins, and if our President is economically clueless?
The statement also called on the President as a matter of urgent national importance to appoint a Chief Economic Adviser and set up an economic team to formulate viable fiscal policies to support the monetary policies of the CBN.
Furthermore, they called on the government to reduce the burden of governance by eliminating or merging some of Nigeria’s more than 500 federal parastatals and boards with regard to the white paper already released by the previous administration from the former Head of Service of the federation, Mr Steve Oronsanye’s report.
The statement signed by Ijeoma Okolie, the spokesperson of the group also read, “We want the presidency to sustain the gains of the previous administration, especially in the area of agriculture which culminated in dry season farming and increased rice production, by putting machineries in place for more diversification of the Nigerian economy. President Buhari must intensify efforts to create an alternative means of revenue generation other than oil.”
It is noteworthy that this group of young, patriotic, peace loving and democratic individuals had earlier released a statement for the formation of a Shadow Cabinet ahead of the announcement of members of the FEC.
The group promises to provide sound, adequate and thoroughbred alternative policies to deepen our country’s democratic tenets and foster development.
Ijeoma Okolie