A former governor of Niger State, Dr Muazu Babangida Aliyu, has chided the leadership of the country, saying Nigeria’s economy has been plunged into grave danger in the last six years.
Speaking with reporters in Abuja on Friday, Aliyu alleged the country has been weakened by bad policies, poor implementation, wastages and plundering of resources.
He said armed bandits and kidnappers have further worsened the state of the economy.
“Those in the driver’s seat have been clueless on how to turn the economic wheel around out of its wood and the country has continued to slide into doldrums, greater pains, penury and uncertainty,” he said.
He argued that the economic policies put in place in the past six years have been inconsequential and of little effect to redress the wobbling economic situation.
He argued further that without true and real empowerment of citizens, “the superficial torch – the surface dressings” in the name of giving palliatives to citizens were adding no value on citizens as hardships bites harder every day.
The former two term governor of Niger, who was Chairman, of the Northern States Governors Forum, described the federal government’s School Feeding Programme as a waste of resources.
“Without a defined social security programmes for citizens, the federal government’s schools feeding programme is meant to fail from its start.”
“What is paramount is for citizens, parents of children to be empowered so that they could confidently take care of their wards at home rather than giving school pupils rations and fragments of meals during schools hours,” he said.
He said some years ago, the Peoples Democratic Party-led government implemented the school feeding programme on pilot scheme, in few states but realised its unworkability and had to jettisoned it quickly.
On cases of abduction of school students, the former governor said our country’s security agencies should have known that the Kankara school boys abduction in Katsina State was a trial test by the bandits for subsequent schools invasion.
