Claim to performance not visible in lives of Nigerians, FG told

By Patrick Okohue

The All Progressives Congress (APC) led federal government has been told to stop laying claims to ground breaking achievements in the last four years if it cannot work on translating those performances to better life for the ordinary Nigerian.

Giving the advice at the second annual lecture of Freedom Online, a Senior Research Fellow-in programme-Centre for West African Studies, University of Birmingham, UK, Prof. Akinyemi Onigbinde and the Aare Onakankanfo of Yoruba Land, Iba Gani Adams said Nigerians are suffering and that the government should prove its claims to good performance in bettering lives of the people, instead of the government always laying claims to high level performance that the people cannot see or feel.

The duo were reacting to claims of high performance by the federal government as made by the Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adeshina, who had spoken earlier.

Prof. Onigbinde wondered how the government has done so much and yet so little is visible for the people to see.

Specifically, he took a swipe at the government on its claims to reducing the high importation of rice and even generating foreign exchange for the country through the importation of rice, wondering where the rice that the government claims is so abundant is being sold.

“I hear of some of these land breaking achievements of the government, how locally produced rice has flooded every market in the country, but it appears to me that such rice is only available on air and in the news media because I live in Abeokuta and Ibadan and I don’t see these rice in any of the markets.

“Just as we have been eating the Ogun state produced Mitros rice in the news,” he declared, asserting that besides rice, many of the acclaimed performances of the government are not visible and urged the government to draw these things down to the level of the ordinary citizen.

Also wondering where the many achievements of the government can be seen, Adams urged Adeshina to tell President Buhari that Nigerians are hungry and suffering and that he needs to do more for the people.

Adams said he has travelled to over 45 countries across the world, noting that everywhere he went there is nowhere the government will come out to be talking about its invisible performances, but rather the people see what the government is doing as it reflects on their lives.

He added “besides the issue of availability of food, the issue of electricity is very important. When you take care of electricity and security in any country, you have already taken care of the enabling environment for any investor in that environment.

“You have tried in the last four years, now you have another opportunity to serve another four years and we have no option. The president has come into power, so we need drastic change in terms of development to cushion the effects of the hard times on the masses and all Nigerians.”

Earlier, Adeshina had reeled out a list of areas that the federal government was making ground breaking achievements, which he said many Nigerians will choose not to see because they play politics with everything.

According to him, in 2018 the Nigerian economy grew by 2.0 per cent despite the challenges facing the nation, adding that the priority attention that the government is paying to agriculture and solid mineral has started to yield positive results as there has been steady growth in those sectors.

He said in the last few months’ inflation rate has fallen by 11.3 per cent and that external reserves have grown from $29.6 billion in 2015 to $47.5 billion in 2018 despite that in 2015 crude price was $143 per barrel to now that it is much lower.

Adeshina added that the government has grown export by 59.47 per cent and the government has also significantly grown the export of solid minerals and agricultural products, thereby saving the nation billions of dollars through rice importation.

Earlier former Governors of Abia and Ogun states, Orji Uzor Kalu and Otunba Gbenga Daniel respectively, had remarked on what the government needs to do to grow the economy.