The Spokesman for the President Buhari Campaign Organisation, Mr Festus Keyamo, has said the current administration is not to be blamed for economy thrown into recession.
Keyamo stated this on Monday while appearing as a guest on Channels Television’s breakfast show, Channels Television in Abuja, the nation’s capital.
“Nobody should wake up because of political reasons and say that it was when this government came on board that we slipped into recession,” he said.
Keyamo, who is also a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, argued that President Muhammadu Buhari inherited the recession from the previous administration in 2014.
He explained that the Federal Government also inherited about 24 states that were considered bankrupt following their inability to pay salaries in 2015.
He added, “At the point of handover in 2015, 24 states were almost bankrupt and could not pay salaries. Federal Government was borrowing to pay salaries at that point.
“The naira had begun the downward slide and at the time they handed over, it was N225 to a Dollar. So these are clear indices that there was something wrong and that we were headed to the bottom of a slope.”
Keyamo’s defence was in reaction to comments made by a former Vice President of the World Bank, Mrs Oby Ezekwesili, who blamed Nigeria’s recession on the failure of this current administration to initiate good economic policies.
Ezekwesili who also spoke to Channels Television on Monday said the economy would not have slipped into recession if the Federal Government had been proactive.
She said, “ If you did the right economic policies at that time, you would have averted the recession.”
While giving an assessment of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration three years into office, she added, “Much other oil producing and exporting countries managed to avert the recession.”
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