The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, says President Bola Tinubu’s government took over a fragile economy with the country on the verge of collapse.
Wike, in an interview with newsmen on Friday, dismissed claims that the Tinubu government damaged the country’s economy.
“He took over, he took over an economy that was gone. Was totally gone,” Wike said on the show.
The minister claimed, “Nigeria was ready to be buried. Luckily, it has not been buried. Someone [Tinubu] came and said, ‘No, I will not allow you to be buried’.”
Tinubu took over power in May 2023 from his party man, Muhammadu Buhari, after eight years.
He immediately ended the fuel subsidy regime and later floated the naira, two policies that led to a rise in the cost of living.
There have been protests and criticism of the Tinubu government over the handling of the economy.
On Thursday’s edition of the show, Rotimi Amaechi, a minister who served under Buhari, alleged that the “current government has completely buried the economy.
However, Wike is a member of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) but is working with the Tinubu-led APC Federal Government, has defended the removal of the subsidy, and the president’s economic policies.
“Take, for example, the fuel subsidy removal. Everyone said this was a scam. So what do we do? He [Tinubu] came and said, ‘I will not allow this again. It has to go’.”
Wike admitted that while the move came with a lot of challenges, including the hike in the cost of the essential product from around N200 to about N1,000 per litre, state governments now have more funds to work with.
“But a lot of money will be put in the hands of states or the federating units,” the former governor of Rivers State said on the prime time show. “There’s so much, there’s so much money in the hands of the state, whether anybody likes it or not. There’s so much money.”
The minister said two years is inadequate to judge the administration of President Tinubu and is calling for support.
He praised the president for stepping up and putting out policies to put the country’s economy in the right direction.
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