Over the past eight years, the government led by the All Progressives Congress has pushed the Nigerian people into crucibles of pain and agony. From insecurity to economic misalignment, the current APC government has shown why Nigerians should never allow the party to return to power again.

Before 2015, many Nigerian households could afford to buy rice at N8,000 to N10,000 per bag at that time. Those who criticized the situation then must be unnerved and shocked by the ineptitude of the APC government which has ensured that a bag of rice now sells for between N35,000 and N50,000.

The Nigerian currency still had some value at that time, as the dollar to naira exchange rate was N199/$ in March 2015. Today, no one knows the real naira to dollar exchange rate. While the black or parallel market – popularized by the APC government – sells at N750-N800/$, the so-called official market, which does not even support businesses, sells between N440 and N460 per dollar.

The implications of allowing businesses like manufacturers access to dollars have been dire for the economy. Between 2016 and 2021, manufacturers’ investments fell from N489.44 billion to N217.22 billion, according to Nigerian Manufacturers Association data compiled by The PUNCH. The price of such a common product as biscuit has risen from N10 in 2015 to N30 to N40 in 2023. Even so, it is no longer as rich as before in terms of quantity and quality. The reason is not unreasonable, since the manufacturers themselves struggle to access dollars to import their raw materials. Even most of the regressive integration programs initiated by the PDP-led governments of Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan have evaporated.

For starters, backward integration programs were intended to ensure that manufacturers sourced their raw materials locally. It was made into sugar, cement, palm oil, flour, and various other products. But ask the manufacturers, they will tell you that they have stopped most of those projects. By 2014, more than 21 vehicle assemblers had set up plants in various parts of Nigeria, but some of them withdrew four or five years later due to policy changes by the APC-led administration.

In addition, inflation has twice hit the 20 percent mark, receded, and today is almost 22 percent. Food inflation was 24% in December 2022, up from 9.78% in May 2015. Not surprisingly, prices for garri, rice, beans, tomatoes and other food items are out of range. reach of the Nigerian people. Many Nigerian families are worse off thanks to the APC-led government, with 133 million of them living in multidimensional poverty.

The APC-led government, through the Debt Management Office, announced in December 2022 that the country’s debt will reach 77 trillion naira if the National Assembly restructures the ways and means. Many Nigerians may not understand this. A government has borrowed money, mainly through printing new money, from the Central Bank of Nigeria, and is requesting debt restructuring when it is time to repay. This is perhaps the first time in Nigerian history that a government would seek to restructure its central bank lending.

If this is not financial mischief, how else would anyone explain the N5.24 trillion debt service incurred by the APC-led government in 2022?

The World Bank projected, in December 2022, that interest payments on the ways and means of the CBN APC-led government would take 62 percent of government revenue by 2027.

In his words, “Despite the restructuring of Ways and Means shares in 2023, interest payments are projected to rise steadily by 2.4 percentage points of GDP between 2018 and 2027, and by 2027 interest payments will account for more than 62% of revenue. ”

Shockingly, the APC-led government has withheld the gasoline subsidy, which it described as fraud when it was campaigning in 2014 and early 2015. fuel subsidy in 2023.

The private sector has received nothing more from the APC led government than the payment of multiple taxes, levies and fees. At present, many companies are taxed at 35 percent or more on their income due to the tendency of the APC-led government to increase taxes or introduce new ones. However, many of the private sector players conduct their business in environments where there is little or no power supply, good roads and terrible port systems. Manufacturers and other businesses access loans at interest rates above 23 percent.

If Nigeria’s economy has collapsed, the security architecture has become comatose. Terrorists have driven many Nigerians from their villages and destroyed farms, which is why food prices are so high. According to the United Nations Development Programme, the insurgency in the northeast has killed 350,000 Nigerians, 10 times more than previously estimated in 2019. Many Nigerians, including school-age children, in other parts of the country have also been kidnapped and some are still in the custody of the kidnappers without any proactive steps by the APC-led government to rescue them.

All these challenges explain why Nigerians are now clamoring for Atiku Abubakar, the Wazirin Adamawa, the candidate of the People’s Democratic Party who is by far the most experienced, the most prepared and the most sincere of the candidates fighting to replace the president. of the APC, Buhari, in the next elections.

A well-rounded presidential candidate, Atiku understands how to run an economy, being a private sector person himself. He was in charge of Nigeria’s economy as Vice President and oversaw one of the country’s best periods of economic prosperity between 1999 and 2007. He is passionate about the economy and believes in enabling the private sector to manage critical assets while the government supplements with policies and a pleasant business environment.

In 2014, Abubakar said on his Twitter account that he believed he was the largest private employer of labor in Nigeria at the time. On his hash tag, #LetsTalkJobs, he had noted: “As an individual, I believe my track record in recruiting young Nigerians is unrivaled by any private investor in Nigeria.”

Abubakar added: “Since the mid-1980s, my private investments have created thousands of jobs for Nigeria, today there are over 50,000 jobs #LetsTalkJobs.”

A man who had created 50,000 jobs in 2014 can create more jobs if he becomes president. He will also be able to boost the foreign and local investments necessary to reactivate the development of the country’s infrastructure, being himself a private sector person with several investments. The former vice president is a man who wastes no time addressing problems.

That is why Nigerians are waiting to crown him president on February 25.

Nigerians know that he has the paramilitary expertise to combat insecurity with a carrot-and-stick approach. He will dialogue with various agitating groups to achieve peace and prosperity. Those who are bent on killing innocent Nigerians will be crushed.

As Nigerians head to the historic polls, it is becoming increasingly clear that many voters from north to south are hoping to crown Wazirin Adamawa as president of the most populous black nation.