According to a former minister of aviation, Osita Chidoka, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of the Labour Party would have faced serious economic issues if they had won the 2023 presidential contest.
Chidoka asserted that Nigeria’s economy was devastated for eight years under the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
During an appearance on Sunday Politics on Channels Television, the PDP leader stated that President Bola Tinubu lacked the political will to make difficult decisions on the nation’s economy.
“The eight years under Buhari were devastating. Value was destroyed by the APC-led Buhari government in a major and unprecedented way. There isn’t a switchboard you can simply turn on and modify everything at once to repair the harm.
“The government’s capacity to obtain foreign exchange has been severely hampered by the acquisition of 23 trillion in Ways and Means and the borrowing of money in dollars to service that debt.
That means that whether it was led by Atiku, Obi, or Sowore, any new administration would have encountered formidable obstacles.
“The President’s pain has nothing to do with the economy; Nigeria was hardly growing. This president has stated that we should bear the cost of the foreign exchange they were manipulating and selling to themselves for N400.
“Tinubu’s challenge is that he needs to court the support of a minority of voters in Nigeria—63 percent of the electorate did not vote for him—because he lacks political consensus in the country when making these difficult decisions,” the speaker stated.