Nigeria’s Economy Would Have Collapsed If Not For Buhari’s Ingenuity—Keyamo

Nigeria’s Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamu has said that the Nigerian economy would have collapsed if not for President Muhammadu Buhari’s economic ingenuity.

Keyamo who also doubles as the spokesperson of the Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign Council said this during an interview on Wednesday.

The Buhari government came under another round of criticism after he signed the N21.82trn 2023 Appropriation Bill which may push the country into higher debt.

The National Assembly had passed the Appropriation Bill in December 2022 but it was increased by N1.32trn from N20.5trn to N21.82trn.

But the President did not sign the Finance Bill 2022 which has pushed more tax burden on Nigerians.

The budget has N10.78trn deficit which would be raised through borrowing.

Already, the country’s debt profile has hit N44trn as of September last year.

At 21.47 per cent, inflation is eroding the purchasing power of Nigerians.

Government data shows that 133 million Nigerians have been pushed into multi-dimensional poverty under the Buhari administration.

The 2020 report on poverty by the National Bureau of Statistics shows that more than 33 per cent of the population are unemployed.

Keyamo said on Arise Tv that, “We could have been in a worse scenario now if not for the effort we made to save the economy room disaster and I say this will all sense of seriousness because I know some people will snigger at this.

“All the people who served them (PDP) in economic capacity, the Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, CBN Governor, Soludo, who is a governor of Anambra State, Mohammed Sanusi they were emphatic that whoever wins the 2015 election was going to inherit a mess of an economy.

“We would have been in a worse-case scenario now if not for the best way President Muhammadu Buhari handled the economy. Our sister countries around have collapsed entirely.

“Ghana has been declared bankrupt because we operated under the same conditions. Despite all of these, we have made tremendous infrastructural development so much that in the sixteen years of PDP and despite all the money they earned, they did not get 10 percent of the infrastructural development that we achieved with the paucity of funds and the harsh economic conditions that we inherited from the PDP.”

Economists have projected tougher times for the Nigerian economy in 2023.

The Minister said, “We came out of post Covid better than and quicker than IMF projected. On the unemployment rate, the fact is that the multi-levels of government are involved and it was a worldwide issue.

“The borrowing, people can easily see the infrastructure that we have built as a result of borrowing. And when people borrow, it means you are credit-worthy it means that they rate your economy so good that you can pay back because these are the things that can restore the economy.

“It is only by infrastructure that you can restore the economy and the economy will do so well that we can pay back these loans.

“Don’t forget that in Africa our debt-to-GDP ratio is the best. Ours is the best of all the big nations in Africa, Egypt, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana is one of the best. We have not gone above the IMF ceiling like other African countries who are doing 70 per cent.”