Girei absolves Tinubu, blames hardship on ’12 years of looting’
By Onimisi Alao
Senator Abubakar Girei
The right way to get Nigeria out of the prevailing economic crisis is to view it as a product of misdeeds of the last 12 years and seek ways to remedy it.
A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Adamawa State, Sen Abubakar Girei who expressed the view, said Nigerians should not blame the situation on or expect the impossible from incumbent President Bola Tinubu.
Abubakar Girei, in an interaction with newsmen in Yola, advised that an independent judicial panel of inquiry be formed to investigate looters in the past 12 years and recover their loot.
“I am sure we will uncover and recover humongous trillions of naira which will be enough to stabilise the country,” Girei said.
Describing fuel subsidy removal as a brave approach that requires time to yield desired results, Girei said, “The looting of our common wealth, leading to subsidy removal and forex liberalisation, are the major underlying factors behind the hardship and inflation we are witnessing today.
“Our challenges are simply the consequences of bad leadership, especially in the last 12 years. During the period, Nigeria was visited with the highest level of leadership inertia. With the lacklustre style of past leaders, fifth columnists took over the space.
“The leadership space was infiltrated by greedy scammers and charlatans who engaged in open and documented frauds through all sorts of schemes, including forex arbitrage, round tripping, phantom subsidy claims, oil bunkering and direct theft of public funds through illegal tax waivers and ‘ways and means’.
“In a brazen manner, the NNPCL for years stopped contributing to FAAC on account of spending all its earnings in the payment of phantom subsidy claims.”
He added that in the face of the irresponsible leadership, some Nigerians warned that the country was being led to its untimely grave, close to where the country currently is.
