Says Nigeria’s economy a disaster under APC leadership since 2014
Former Presidential Aspirant, Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, has said that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) decision to zone its 2027 presidential ticket to southern Nigeria is an open endorsement of President Bola Tinubu’s re-election.
Speaking on Channels Television programme, Politics Today, Olawepo-Hashim, most of those championing the zoning arrangement have openly declared their support to work for Tinubu’s re-election.
Olawepo-Hashim said: “Nyesom Wike has made it clear to everybody that he is campaigning for President Tinubu and I have told you that he didn’t hide it that he is working for Tinubu’s re-election.
“And some of his supporters have also said the same time even while in PDP. I said to you that zoning to the south is a default endorsement for President Tinubu’s re-election. We have travelled this road before and this is not the first time. Sani Abacha created five political parties and all the five parties adopted him. But did Abacha become the president?
“Even under that circumstance, we had Alhaji MD Yusuf, who said I’m a member of the GDM and I’m waiting for Abacha to come to the national convention because I’m going to contest against him. So, we have seen this kind of thing before but what I thought was that we have passed this kind of stage.
“When people are not doing well in government and they are paranoid about retaining power, they don’t even want any election because they cannot even trust that they can rig successfully. They would rather prefer that nobody will contest against them and that they are the only candidate.”
Speaking on Nigeria’s economy under All Progressives Congress (APC) since 2014, Olawepo-Hashim said the economy has been a disaster. He said in 2014, Nigeria’s GDP was $574 billion according to the world economy and the GDP today is $259 billion. He said what Nigeria’s economy has witnessed in the last 10 years is beyond economic depression.
“The great depression in America we all talked about in 1929 was not more than 10 per cent contraction. When an economy contracts marginally for about three quarters, you say the economy has gone into recession. When it loses 10 per cent of its value, you say we are witnessing depression. What then do you say about this 50 per cent contraction since 2014?
“There is no precedent for this kind of economic collapse that we have seen in 10 years. So, the 10 years of APC government has been a disaster. You cannot even call it a recession and you cannot call it a depression, it is a complete disaster of monumental proportion.
“How can you have a GDP of $574 billion and we were the largest economy in Africa. In 2014, the economy ranked the largest in Africa and oil was not the biggest contributor to the economy then.
“Telecom was already competing with oil in the size of the GDP. The economy was already being diversified. Let me tell you, you under estimate the potentials of the telecom market and the telecom revolution that was accomplished in this country.
“So, we were already on the trajectory where we moved our telephone lines from merely 400,000 to over a 100 million. Nigeria was already becoming huge cyber power. Now the only thing that we needed to do was to treat the content creation young elements and participate at the international outsourcing level and invest a little bit in cyber security so that people can trust your destination.
“We have a lot of advantage because Brazil and India don’t speak good English the way Nigerians speak because we are primarily an English speaking country.
“Nigeria has always been a great country, Nigeria is not about to become great now. What you find now is disaster. Between 1959 and 1966, Nigeria economy was bigger than the economy of Malaysia.
“Nigeria’s GDP in 1966 by the time the military took over was $6.3 billion, while Malaysia was $3.2 billion, Indonesia was $5.8 billion and Thailand was $5.2 billion,” he said.
