Atiku hits Osinbajo, APC on economic mismanagement

The fireworks between Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has been taken beyond the debate on restructuring of the polity to reflect true federalism and enhance better governance from the component states to critical issues of economic management and prudent financial administration.

National Daily gathered that Atiku chided the APC government over loss of 7.9 million jobs in less than two years, arguing that celebration of creation of 500,000 jobs does not make up for the lost jobs. The former vice president further argued that the PDP government paid off Nigeria’s $30 billion foreign debt at a time the government was earning less than what the APC government earns today.

Atiku had declared|: ‘If the Vice President cannot see that losing 7.9 million jobs in 21 months while creating 500,000 jobs is a deficit, then, I do not know what to say to the professor.
“Prof. Osinbajo also harps on “prudence in public finance”, but he fails to show the wisdom in sharing out $322 million of Abacha funds only to take a loan of $328 million from the Chinese the next month. Many Nigerians, myself included, see this as imprudence.”

The former vice president maintained inter alia: “My response to Vice President Osinbajo is that while I was Vice President in 2006, Nigeria’s Economic Management Team, paid off Nigeria’s entire foreign debt of $30 billion, at a time when we were earning one third of what the Buhari administration is currently earning from oil.”

Professor Osinbajo had at a recent international forum reiterated the traditional All Progressives Congress, APC, gospel that the government of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, failed to save for Nigeria a time the country earned much from crude oil high price in the international market, arguing that failure has continued to draw back governance in the country. The vice president had also remarked that the APC government has been prudent in managing Nigeria’s funds in the past three years.