‘Blaming Jonathan for our woes, not acceptable anymore’

The knack by top officials of the Buhari administration to blame previous administrations for performance has been faulted by Senator Ridwan Adesoji Akanbi.

Speaking on Friday at the valedictory lecture of the out going executive of the Oyo State National Union of Journalists,  Akanbi said the Buhari administration knew what the state of the nation was before it came on board.

According to him, “blaming Jonathan for Nigeria’s problem is unacceptable. We knew what was on the ground before we came in.  Unfortunately, prices were skyrocketing when APC came in, but excuses are not acceptable.”

He, however, commended the President for his prudence and vouched for his honesty.
“Buhari’s government is prudent and you can take his words to the bank.”

He identified weak institutions and lack of will to implement populist’s policies as the major factors responsible for the lack of performance of successive governments in the country.

“Nigeria has weak institutions. Formulating policies are not a problem here,  but implementation is the problem we have.  We are a nation of about 200 million. People with a foreign reserve of about $20 billion.  With strong institutions, you have to perform.  We have deficiencies in all phases of our of our society, education,  health and others, it’s so scary.

“An example of a weak institution is the NDDC that has received about $52 billion and nothing to show for it.”

Senator Akanbi also noted that no serious businessman would think of investing in the country in its present state,  blaming the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for imposing certain policies that are further compounding the present hard economic hardship being experinced by Nigerians.

“The CBN Governor has variously canvassed for high interest rates. But there are no barometers to support his suggestions.  In a bad economy,  you are supposed to bring down interests rates to spike business.”

He enumerated other institutions that have been tainted by the Nigerian Factor.

“The recent American election was an eye opener.  We know the antecedents of Finals Trump,  but the strong institutions in America will whip him into line.  This is what we should have in Nigeria.  People say the Legislature is the most corrupt,  but look at a case of one of my colleagues  who told me that he spent about N500 million to get to the House,  so what do you expect from somebody like that?

“look at our Judiciary.  There is no way a Judge will collect bribe,  except through a lawyer.  And these are custodians of the law.  When the DSS stormed the homes of some of the judges,  they ran to us in the House,  complaining about invasion of privacy and Fundamental Human Rights. But the Senate told them that even though we would have love to support them,  there were overwhelming evidences against them.

“You can see that there have been a remarkable improvement in the performance of the judiciary since then.”