A former Aviation Minister, Osita Chidoka, has said the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar and Labour Party’s Peter Obi would have faced significant economic problems witnessed now if they had emerged as the winner of the 2023 election.
Chidoka claimed that the immediate past President Muhammadu Buhari destroyed Nigeria’s economy for eight years.
Appearing on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, the PDP chieftain said President Bola Tinubu lacked the political consensus to take tough decisions on the country’s economy.
“The eight years of Buhari were a destroying eight years. The APC-led Buhari govt destroyed value in a significant and unprecedented manner. Now to cure that damage, there is no switchboard you can just light and change everything overnight.
“That government actually acquired 23 trillion in Ways and Means and borrowed money in dollars, that has significantly hindered the government’s ability to have foreign exchange because you need to service those debt in dollars.
“So, any government that comes in would have faced significant headwinds whether it was Atiku, Obi or Sowore.
“The difference that the President is suffering is not economics, Nigeria was going barely up. We were going to pay for the foreign exchange they were manipulating and selling to themselves at N400, this president has said we should pay the price.
“Tinubu’s challenge is that he lacks political consensus in Nigeria in making these tough decisions, people who voted for him are a minority in Nigeria, 63 percent of the voters did not vote for him, so he needs to woo them,” he said.
