Afenifere dismisses FG’s claim of economic turnaround

Pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, in a statement by its leader, Oba Oladipo Olaitan and the National Publicity Secretary, Prince Justice Faloye, described the claim of economic turnaround as media spin.

It said the claim that the economy had stabilized “is a euphemism that the economy has reached rock bottom after being pushed off the cliff with subsidy removal and devaluation policies.”

The statement read in part, “When a $10 billion subsidy with $200 billion production multiplier effects is removed, when the economy falls by $200 billion, it would stop falling. The question is what happens to the 7 million businesses that collapsed and tens of millions pushed into poverty, are they just collateral damage of self-induced economic destabilisation mislabelled as economic reforms?

“The fall of real wages by 300 per cent make claims of an economic turnaround unfounded. While a select few elites might take advantage of the devaluation, the average Nigerian workers’ purchasing power has been wiped off by devaluation and inflation, and until the majority get their wages adjusted there can be no turnaround.

“The administration’s increase in minimum wage to N70, 000 benefited less than 5 per cent of workers. The Nigerian worker has been economically reformed to slave wages, with even those at the pinnacle of the academia and armed forces paid peanuts. A professor is paid less than unemployed persons in Europe and the Americas, while the basic wages of army generals just about equals the amount paid unemployed people.”