It was quite depressing and disappointing to read a statement by the Chairman of the Edo State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) where he fruitlessly sought to shift the blame for the pervasive hardship and sufferings faced by Edo people and indeed all Nigerians as a result of the failures of his government at the centre, to the Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki.
The statement is an affirmation that the Edo APC is delusional and has lost touch with reality. It is quite curious and saddening that the Edo APC is making a mockery of the people amid the excruciating pain and suffering they have to face daily as a result of the over nine years of misrule and gross mismanagement of the nation’s economy by the APC-led Federal Government.
It is in these nine years of APC’s misrule that the country experienced the worst inflation in its 25-year democratic history, extreme poverty, most frightening level of insecurity, and worsening living conditions, among others, arising from the various bad policies that have been implemented by the Federal Government, but the Edo APC chose to feign ignorance.
It is on record that the haphazard withdrawal of subsidy by the APC Government on May 29, 2023, tossed the economy into chaos and pushed our people to the brink of starvation.
The decision on exchange rate unification by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) exacerbated the cost of living and low-capacity utilization in the productive sector, resulting in high cost of goods and services. With the move, the Naira significantly lost its value, without strategically thinking of how to cushion the resultant difficulties.
With the worsening security situation across the country, many farmers have been displaced and cannot produce sufficient food, which has been largely responsible for high food prices.
It is under this present misrule of this current APC-led federal government that women have to eventually give up farming which used to be one of the highest contributors to the nation’s GDP. These women who constitute over 60 percent of the total farmers’ workforce across the value chain from planting, processing, and distribution, have now become unemployed and are being ravished by hunger and poverty.
This inglorious exhibition at the national level which has put the country in a state of comatose, is the reason for palpable tension and agitation across the country, leading to the ongoing nationwide #EndBadGovernance protests.
But rather than talk to their party at the national level to review some of its terrible, anti-people policies that have now put our people in dire straits, the Edo APC chose to chase shadows, pointing accusing fingers at a governor who has taken deliberate steps and adopted nuanced measures to reduce the suffering and hardship of the people amid the current economic realities.
No gainsaying, the Edo APC is out of its depths. They are reeling from the fact that they have a bad and unmarketable candidate in Monday Okpebholo, who has continued to inflict the party and its handlers with the pain of telling lies to hoodwink Edo people and ahead of the governorship election.
But Edo people already know their divisive antics and will not be perturbed by their wailings. They know who their friends are and who their oppressors are and will not allow lies and propaganda by their oppressors to cloud their judgment and stop them from making informed decisions at the forthcoming guber elections.
Come September 21, it is PDP or nothing, and there is nothing the APC can do about it.