The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Odigie-Oyegun has maintained that the challenges facing the nation today wasn't their fault because the problems were there before the APC government took power. He also said the Buhari administration has been doing a lot of work to rebuild a "battered nation."
Speaking on Monday’s anti-government protests in Abuja, Lagos and other cities, Oyegun argued that Nigeria was not engulfed in a crisis, adding that “demonstrations are okay” for people to “ventilate their grievances”, provided they are not hijacked by other forces.
“Nigeria is not in crisis mode. Demonstrations are okay. People are hungry. You cannot beat a child and tell the child not to cry. People are hungry. Demonstrations are okay if they want to ventilate, provided they are not exploited,” Oyegun said.
“We are rebuilding this nation. We are rebuilding a shattered economy and agriculture is beginning to be significant. During Christmas, suddenly there were bags of local rice all over the nation. We celebrated Christmas with bags of beautiful Nigerian rice.
“As a matter of fact, I never knew until last Christmas that we have beautiful rice in Nigeria.
“Electricity is going up and gas supply is rising but the crisis in the Niger Delta is affecting gas supply,” Oyegun added.
“The situation we are in today did not start today. We are a mono- economy dependent on oil. Even Okonjo-Iweala, who was part of the government, warned us repeatedly to save but was ignored.
“The most important thing is that dependence on oil must stop. We must build our agriculture, which we are doing; we must build our solid minerals base, which we are doing; we must build our infrastructure, particularly power, which we are doing,” Oyegun said.
