A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Segun Sowunmi has faulted the Federal Government’s policies, saying President Bola Tinubu is confused about what to do.
Tinubu had declared an end to the subsidy regime on petrol upon assumption of office and later floated the naira, triggering a hike in the cost of living.
Critics have faulted the moves amid a ballooning inflation level and Sowunmi of the PDP is towing the same line, claiming Tinubu is confused about economic policies.
“I am so optimistic and I say it to people who ask me, ‘If Tinubu can’t figure out these things I wonder who can.’ I think that, one, he is confused,” he said on Friday’s edition of Channels Television’s Politics Today.
The PDP chieftain said, “I don’t understand what the CBN people are doing relative to the value of the currency. Are they telling me that by their imagination, by floating the currency, Nigeria’s currency will become toilet paper?”
The price of petroleum has gone up from around N200 per litre since May 2023 to about N1,000 at the moment.
Although the coming on stream of the Dangote Refinery is expected to cut the price, the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) pegged the cost of the commodity between N855 and N897 per litre
Sowunmi is therefore wondering, “What exactly constitutes the science and commerce of pricing petrol when you are refining in your country?
“I have been reading a lot of books on how we can work around this pricing and the research is still ongoing. When I am done with it, I will come out with what we can consider,” the PDP chieftain said.
‘Mess Made by the PDP’
However, the spokesman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) Felix Morka accused the PDP of being behind the current crisis in the country.
He said the APC-led government has been working on fixing the mismanagement of the country by the PDP which ruled between 1999 and 2015.
“The Buhari administration did nothing in eight years but to clean and mop up the mess made by the PDP,” Morka said on the show.
“What Nigerians don’t realise is that the PDP government created and operated a phantom economy where billions and billions of dollars and naira were awarded and thrown around for national projects that were never done as such. All of that money was simply rolled out into private pockets.”