Economic recession: 3 mistakes of Buhari, by Analyst

·        Blames President for mishandling the economy

·        Catholic Bishops, Fayose speak up

     Suicide cases rise

It is now an open secret that Nigeria has gone from a promised land for Nigerians and foreign investors alike to one of frustrated fortunes.

 The country is experiencing its worst economic crisis ever;   the currency has collapsed and output is set to shrink this year for the first time since 1991. A report by Bloomberg has painted a gloomy picture for Nigeria as Africa’s most populated country continue to battle recession.

President Muhammadu Buhari, ... running a recessed economy.

The report states that President Muhammadu Buhari is presiding over a battered economy. Figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Wednesday, August 31, showed that Nigeria had officially gone into recession.

The NBS figures showed that in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the second quarter of 2016, Nigeria’s economy contracted by 2.06 percent. The country’s economy shrank by 0.36 percent to hit its lowest point in 25 years. The second quarter report makes Nigeria’s economy the worst in three decades.

Bloomberg, an analyst at a leading information and advisory services firm for emerging markets – Frontier Strategy Group, Martina Bozadzhieva blames President Muhammadu Buhari for mishandling the economy. The analyst noted that Nigeria was always going to suffer from a drop in oil prices, but blamed the Buhari’s government for what the expert called its “bungled response”. 

 Bozadzhieva listed three areas where President Buhari caused the recession. They are:

1. He took almost six months to form a cabinet.

 2. He approved the 2016 budget very late in May.

 3. He leaned on Central Bank of Nigeria governor, Godwin Emefiele to peg the naira which made inflation soar to an 11-year high and the naira has since plunged 40 percent against the dollar.

 Meanwhile, the recession in Nigeria appears to have further stimulated more suicide cases across the nation a recent media report suggested. In the last six months, seven out of the 36 states of the federation sampled, have recorded over 62 cases of suicides according to statistics from the various police commands. The report stated that Ogun and Lagos states have the highest figures of 25 and 12 respectively.

Below are the seven states with the highest suicide cases in Nigeria as reported by New Telegraph.

 1. Ogun The Acting Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Abimbola Oyeyemi, has confirmed 25 awful statistics of suicide deaths in Ogun state. On Tuesday, August 16, a housewife identified as Mrs Omolola Atejioye hung herself inside her apartment in Ilishan-Remo, Ikenne local government area of the state. The tragic incident shocked many residents as the deceased did not leave behind any suicide note. Atejioye, aged 35, tied herself to the ceiling in one of the rooms in the building located along Ago-Iwoye road in Ilishan-Remo. The husband of the deceased, Ayodele, reportedly returned from work about 5:30pm and found her wife dangling in the room. Why she took her own life could not be ascertained as neighbours gave different accounts about the incident. While some point to health challenges, others claimed she incurred some debts and was struggling to pay back, without success.

2. Lagos In Lagos state, the PPRO, Dolapo Badmos, a Superintendent of Police, also confirmed that 12 suicide cases and five attempts were reported to the command in the last six months. Worried by this trend, Badmos said, what is important to the police is to find out why people would want to commit suicide. She said there is the need to educate those that did not succeed to see reason that killing oneself is not the best way out of any problem. “We can prosecute anyone who made attempt to kill himself or herself but that seemed not to be the solution. “The real solutions lie in finding out from such persons the reasons for such an act and talk them out of it. We always advise victims’ families of victims to monitor them closely because those who commit suicide do so out of depression and frustration ranging from marital, economic, loss of job and some other vices.”

3. Ebonyi Also in Ebonyi state, no fewer than 10 persons have committed suicide with the latest being a 36-year old man in Mgbaleze Isu Community, Onicha local government area of the state, Chijioke Ani, who hung himself in his farm. The state PPRO, DSP George Okafor, confirmed the incidents. His words: “Yes, it is true that a man killed himself at the farm. He did not leave any note behind so, it was difficult to ascertain what could have led him into the act.” Before Ani’s case, Ogonna Obaji, a 22-year-old man from Umuezeukwu community of the same local government had equally taken his life. According to his mother, Nkpuma, Ogonna, popularly called Best finished his secondary three years ago and moved to Lagos to join his brother but developed mental problem along the line. She told Saturday Telegraph that Ogonna had tried to take his life with knife and was saved on many occasions. “I left Ogonna with the father in the house and when I returned home, I could not see him. I started looking for him and raised the alarm which attracted our people. We searched for him and later saw him dangling on a tree.’’ Earlier in January, a 19-year-old teenager girl, identified simply as Chiamaka, also committed suicide. She was said to have been impregnated and abandoned by her lover boy. Chiamaka took her life in her residence at No. 17 Nwike street Abakaliki.

 4. Delta In Delta state, about four reported cases of suicide were recorded by the state police command. The PPRO, SP Celestine Kalu, confirmed the incidents. Those reported were that of a 26-year-old student of Delta State University, Abraka, Evelyn Mogekwu, a woman, identified simply as Jane, who was said to have committed the act after her fiancé abandoned her for another woman. The other incident was that of a student of the Delta State Polytechnic, Otefe- Oghara, Miss Oritsegbubemi Udu. While Evelyn was studying Microbiology at DELSU, Oritsegbubemi was an ND II student of Otefe-Oghara polytechnic.The name of the fourth victim was not given. Jane, a graduate of economics from University of Benin, allegedly took her life due to frustration after she was jilted by her unidentified boyfriend of seven years.

5. Oyo Oyo, like other states, recorded four cases of suicide within the period under review. On June 26, a 10-year-old girl, Kudirat Raji, was said to have surprisingly committed suicide in Ibadan. She was residing with her sister at 19, Bumoye Street, Benjamin area, Eleyele, the Oyo state capital. Raji was sent on an errand within the house, but did not return on time. She was later found to have hanged herself with a rope tied to the window burglary in the house. Just like Raji, a 35-year old commercial motorcyclist residing in Oyo town, Jimoh Yusuff, also committed suicide on July 2, after reportedly killing his wife, Adeola. Yusuff was said to have strangled his wife to death after which he ingested rat poison and died at the General Hospital, Oyo. There was yet a similar tragedy on August 4, when 48-year old ex-NEPA staff committed suicide in his house at Ayegbami Zone 7, Idi Ose along Akanran road in the Ona Ara local government area of Ibadan. Adepoju was disengaged from the establishment at Abeokuta two years before his death, but his wife said he had not been paid his entitlements. The deceased however left a three-sheet suicide note indicating that he was suffering from a chronic disease. Aside that, another 54-year-old woman, Oluwabunmi Oluwafemi, also toed the same shameful route on August 29, in Ibadan, by hanging himself on a tree. The deceased who used to reside in Bembo, Apata area of Ibadan, was said to have gone to spend the weekend with her first child, Opeyemi, in Olugbode, Odo-Ona area of the town before the calamity.

6. Ondo Unlike other homicide offences, suicide cases are not usually reported to the law enforcement agencies in Ondo state, according to the police. Nonetheless, the PPRO, Femi Joseph, confirmed one reported case in the last six months to the state police command. The deceased, whose name was not given, was a male from Owo local government area of the state. Joseph told the New Telegraph that the man was found dangling at the ceiling of his one room apartment in the town. The PPRO, however, said people are not reporting such cases to the police because of the traditional perception about suicide as, according to him, they prefer to report such incidence to traditionalists.

 7. Kano And in Kano state, about six victims were recorded, according to police statistics. The six cases had to do with depression, the police further said. Sara Imoleayo, a 400 level student of Bayero University Kano, was among those that took their lives. Another, who was identified simply as Dauda was overheard complaining of economic hardship on many occasions slaughtering himself with a sharp knife. The remaining ones, Kumbotso, Madobi and Kwakwachi, one of our correspondents gathered died because of excessive poverty.

Ekiti state governor, Mr Ayodele Fayose has described President Mohammadu Buhari as the major problem of Nigeria that Nigerians must solve, saying; “Our President, through his actions and inactions is destroying everything that makes Nigeria a country and well-meaning Nigerians must stand-up to be counted in the crusade to save the country from going under.” The governor said it was President Buhari that went to foreign countries to de-market Nigeria by calling all Nigerians thieves and dishonest people, asking; “Which foreign investor will invest his money in a country of dishonest people? Who made investors to leave Nigeria if not President Buhari, who created atmosphere of economic and political instability in the country by his acts of nepotism and vindictiveness?”

Governor Fayose of Ekiti State.

Governor Fayose lamented that “President Buhari has not only taking Nigeria to economic recession, he has moved the country to economic depression and nepotism has prevented him from engaging even the best hands in his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC).”

In a statement issued in Ado-Ekiti on Sunday by his special assistant on public communications and new media, Lere Olayinka, the governor said President Buhari should realise that “Nigerians will not measure his government on the basis of what his predecessors failed to do, but on what he does or neglected to do between May 29, 2016 and May 29, 2019.”

 He said with the level of hunger in the country, President Buhari should rather get serious and be innovative with governance and stop his blame game, adding that; “No nation has ever reached greatness by their leaders engaging in blame game, nepotism and vengeance as being done by President Buhari and his APC government.”

The governor said “Nigerians must begin to speak out now before the country is totally destroyed by this one-man government, which does not see any idea coming from those perceived as opposed to the government as worthy of consideration.

 “Like I said before, the main issue confronting Nigerians now is hunger and hunger does not speak the language of politics. It is therefore no longer about politics; it is about preventing hunger from killing Nigerians.”

Governor Fayose, who said the federal government should stop deceiving Nigerians with stories of injecting funds into the economy, added that the economic problems facing the country has gone beyond talks of injecting N350 billion into the economy through execution of capital projects.

“If they inject even N500 billion into the economy by paying contractors executing federal government capital projects, how does that affect the price of rice and other food items? How does it affect the price of basic drugs? “Instead of unsustainable measures, what President Buhari should do is to bring economic experts in the country together not-minding their political and ethnic affiliations so that they can proffer lasting solutions to the country’s economic problems.”

In a related development, Catholic Church Bishops in Nigeria have warned President Buhari not to fritter away the high hopes Nigerians had in him before his assumption of office. The Bishops position was made in a statement issued at the end of their conference in Akure, Ondo state on Thursday, September 15.

Catholic Bishops, (right) in a meeting with President Buhari, at the Presidential
Villa, Aso Rock, Abuja.

They also urged the president not to dismiss the call for restructuring and pay close attention to the strong allegations of nepotism leveled against him by many Nigerians

Part of the Bishops’ statement reads: “We call on our president to wake up to the fact that most Nigerians are today disillusioned by the frittering away of the high hopes which they invested in his resolve to turn things around. The president can no longer safely ignore the very strong allegations of a rise in nepotism and sectionalism in federal appointments. This has further deepened the feelings of alienation and the rise of centrifugal forces that are threatening the foundations of our unity.

 “One-sided appointments into public office have displayed a tendency towards a form of sectionalism that we have found difficult to associate with the high moral credentials of the president. A hurricane of violence by herdsmen and other agents of death has left in its wake a landscape of blood and destruction.

 “Political violence, corruption, kidnappings, armed robbery, ritual murders and all ills of the past, are still very much present and we seem to be progressively sinking deeper into the mud. Our people are now ravaged by disease and hunger. The result is the rise in the curve of violence both by the state agents and non-state actors among our own people.

 “We wish to state firmly that the debate about the restructuring of our country should not be seen as an act of rebellion or as a call for division. It should rather be seen as an expression of our people’s desire that the political class return to the fine principles of democracy such as true federalism, negotiation and consensus building as means of achieving a more equitable distribution of the resources of our country.”

The bishops also frowned at calls for the expansion of the scope of Sharia law in Nigeria, adding that it is at variance with the letter and spirit of the Nigerian Constitution. They pledged their support for the anti-graft war of the president, but warned against the violation of the rule of law in carrying out the fight against corruption;

They advised President Buhari to work with Nigerians from diverse background in the bid to restore the glory of the country.

 “The president must ensure that Nigerians do not feel that our country is sliding back into dictatorship,” the statement concluded.

·          Source: Naij.com