The Action Democratic Party (ADP) has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to inject new and vibrant experts with proven managerial acumen into his yet-to-be formed Next Level cabinet.
The party, while commending the president for increasing the minimum wage for the workers, said if properly managed, Nigerian economy has the capacity to pay a living wage of not less than N100, 000.00 minimum wage per month.
Addressing a news conference after its 15th National Working Committee (NWC) meeting Wednesday in Abuja, ADP’s National Chairman Engr. Yabagi Sani, said based on the mandate of the National Executive Council (NEC) at a recent meeting, the party had appointed Hon. Victor Fingesi as the National Secretary, Mr. Musa Batari as new Deputy National Chairman (North), M.Kunle Olateru-Olagbegi as National Publicity Secretary, Pastor Okey Udoh as National Treasurer, Hon. Ndakwo A. Tanko ESQ as National Legal Adviser and Umaru Yakubu Danhassan as new National Financial Secretary.
On the re-appointment of the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, currently before the National Assembly for confirmation, the ADP cautioned President Buhari “on the urgent need to inject new and vibrant experts with proven managerial acumen and can think out of the box in providing much needed results to take our economy out of the woods.
“An ideal CBN governor for this time is the one who will immediatelycause the convergence of the FOREXmultiple rates and ensure adequate allocation to the real sector of the economy.
“The ideal CBN governor should be able to reduce the billions of dollars used to stabilize naira in the foreign exchange market so as to enable enough inflow of foreign exchange to boost the real sector of the economy and increase the productivity of our economy which will bring about a stronger naira.
“Finally, the Action Democratic Party commends the Federal government for increasing the minimum wage for workers. However, the implementation should be immediate to stave the resultant inflationary tendency on the purchasing power of workers. Furthermore, ADP believes Nigerian economy has the capacity to pay a living wage of not less than N100, 000.00 minimum wage per month.
“The ADP government will grow Nigeria economy in partnership with the private sector with a view to making our economy private sector driven.”
While also commending the President on his recent stand on the autonomy of Local Government Councils, ADP said Buhari should ensure funds availability for the development of the local government areas in line with the Revenue Sharing Formula.
“However, ADP believes that the core issues are rather the process of appointing officers who conduct elections at all levels including the local government elections which has become a mockery of democracy.
“The first responsibility of every government to its citizens is protection of lives and property hence, ADP calls on Mr. President to wake up and provide the necessary leadership now.
“There is an emergency in the security situation in Nigeria and the nation is bleeding, therefore, the need to review the security architecture and the leadership of the armed forces and other security agencies whose morale is at its lowest ebb cannot be overemphasized.
“The abysmal performance of the economy, the mounting unemployment, the deteriorating healthcare, the growing poverty level, the escalating number of children out of school, the declining Direct Foreign Investment, and the ever increasing migration of the youth are all traceable to the emergency security situation in Nigeria.
“While our population is growing at 2.3% our GDP is growing at 1.8% which is a pointer to an impending economic catastrophe; this is further aggravated by the ballooning debt profile which is mostly used to finance recurrent expenditures and increasing debt servicing profile of over 65% of our revenue from Oil. The CBN just reported that our domestic debt servicing charges is about N1.8 Trillion indicating that the domestic debt is equally on the increase.”
