'Buhari Not Responsible For Nigeria's Economic Woes'

The Governorship candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2015 general elections in Cross River State, Mr. Odey Ochicha, has called on Nigerians to stop blaming President Muhammadu Buhari for the country's present economic woes.
In a statement issued by his media office in Calabar, the Cross River State capital, Ochicha noted that Nigerians should learn how to separate fiction from facts, noting that, if not for the intervention of President Buhari, the country may have been in total shamble by now.
The retired NNPC boss maintained that the time was ripe for Nigerians to face reality and stop believing the rhetoric and illusions circulated by some greedy people who looted our common wealth and put Nigeria in the present predicament.
Ochicha stressed that there was nowhere in the world that the economy grows in space, adding that, instead of accusing the APC-led administration, the people should ask former leaders of the structures they set up for our economy to grow without oil.
He blamed the former administration of Dr Goodluck Jonathan for the negative economic indices, describing it as insensitive and the most corrupt in the history of the country.
According to the statement, "Nigerians should begin to channel their questions to the right people and stop believing this rhetoric and illusion that President Buhari and APC are responsible for the nation's economic woes.
“The economy grows by the standard of infrastructure and institutions created, but unfortunately, the Buhari administration inherited almost a failed state from the PDP that had the rare privilege of managing the affairs of this country for a whole 16 years,” he noted.
While blaming the Jonathan administration for mismanaging the nation's resources, he said that, "I can't understand why people are pointing accusing fingers at this administration. The former administration earned more than 60 per cent of our total revenue from oil yet there's nothing to show for it. See what is happening with the former first lady? What work was she doing to have such stupendous amount of money in her various accounts?
"She had over $51.4 million in her separate accounts? What was her source of income?  I served this country for 29 years, six months, and grew to the rank of deputy manager in the NNPC but I cannot boast of such huge amount of money because I didn't steal. But a woman who has contributed nothing to the development of our country is today richer than the entire South-South region,” he queried.
"When people talk about Jonathan handing over the largest economy to Buhari, I begin to wonder whether they don't understand that Jonathan met a viable economy with the growth rate of 7.9 per cent, and left it at about 2.9 per cent. Six months to when he was leaving office and when the prices of crude oil had began to fall; his finance minister told us that they were borrowing money to pay salaries of federal workers. Almost every state was owing salaries for upward of three to nine months.
"But under the President Buhari's administration, despite the difficult economic situation, the government has been able to pay salaries without borrowing. The last two month's federal allocation shared was the highest in the history of this country, and was not gotten from oil. Why is nobody talking about this?"
The APC stalwart called on Nigerians to be patient with the President, adding that nothing good comes easy as the challenges the country is facing were some of the sacrifices we need to make to be great and prosperous again.
He argued that the ongoing challenges would be short-lived considering the dogged approaches being adopted by the present administration to revive the economy.
"Only a few countries like United Arab Emirates, Norway etc that utilized their oil wealth very well are currently not faced with recession. In fact, Norway is surviving now from about $800 billion foreign reserve it had accumulated, but here, former President Jonathan's finance minister has said it all that they lacked the will to save even when they had the will to squander what other administrations had saved.
"So, I want to appeal to Nigerians to be patient with the President. What we are going through now is the price other nations had paid to get to where they are,” Ochicha added.