From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
The National Publicity Secretary of the Julius Abure-led faction of the Labour Party (LP), Mr Obiora Ifoh, has taken the President Bola Tinubu administration and the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the cleaners for what he termed ‘a shambolic handling of the economy,” which, he said, is the worst in the history of the country.
In an exclusive chat with Sunday Sun, Ifoh noted that the poor state of the Nigerian economy makes it seem as if President Tinubu does not have an economic management team as the nation’s ship sinks in the storm.
He said that the LP was the only party with an implementable economic blueprint which it would have administered to turn the economy from consumption to production had it not been robbed of victory in the last presidential election.
He added that the party was upbeat in winning at the Supreme Court in view of recent steps taken by the apex court to correct errors made by the appellate court.
He speaks more about the economy, party and politics in general.
The Economy is almost grinding to a halt, how would you assess Tinubu’s handling of the economy thus far?
Shambolic! The worst ever in the annals of this country. We have moved from the frying pan to the fire. It looks as if he does not have an economic team. All they have been doing in the last four months is trial and error and Nigerians are feeling the brunt. Today, as I talk to you, a dollar is about N1,250 in a space of four months, from N550. That is over 300 per cent increment. What do we call that? As I talk to you now, the filling stations are getting crowded again because the cost of bringing in fuel has increased because of the bad leadership. So, we are in a dire situation. Nigerians are worse off. The economy is tumbling without any bridge.
What would LP have done differently if it was on the saddle?
We have said it before. We said that LP has only one agenda, which is to turn our economy from consumption to production. Let’s take, for instance, the statement we released yesterday about buying cars costing N160 million for each House of Reps member. What for? These are foreign currencies we are shipping away, when we have manufacturers in Nigeria that can manufacture cars and service them. So, why do you throw away our foreign currencies? We need it for the productive sector in Nigeria. When they hear from consumption to production, they don’t understand. We need to look back into our local content and see how we can fund it with the lean resources that we have. Since they entered, have you heard about any input in agriculture? We have thousands of arable land uncultivated being manned by terrorists. These are places we should put our agriculture into serious activity. That is what we have outside our oil economy. Our ability to produce food and feed Africa and the world. We can do it. It does not take much. In one year we can do all these things, but we have not done that. The cultivation period is almost over. It means that we are going to be hungry again next year. People jump into lagoons because of frustration. I was just reading about a young girl that committed suicide because she lost N500,000. There is frustration all over Nigeria.
The off-season elections are coming up soon in Kogi, Imo and Bayelsa. Does LP have confidence in INEC judging from the last outing that has caused issues?
If you look critically at the INEC schedule, INEC has the technology to conduct a free and fair election and they have the manpower to do that. They can actually conduct free elections if they choose to. The one that we are fighting over, was an election conducted with other offices, but in one office, it went well, but in the critical office, it went bad. So, it shows that there was a manpower disconnect. Somebody tampered with something. It has nothing to do with the institution, it has a lot to do with the personnel. In Imo State, for instance, we have been shouting that the EO sent there is a blood sister to the deputy national chairman of APC and the deputy national chairman of APC was brought into office by the governor of Imo State whom he is working for. And we have told you, we have a list of names of those working in that Imo INEC and were recruited, poached to work, including in the hometown of the governor. What are you expecting? We have done petitions, but nothing has been done. So, until things are done right, until the right person is put in place, we will have issues.
What advice do you have for the electoral umpire?
We are asking them to look inwards and put the right personnel in place. The EO that worked in the Enugu East constituency that is still under contention, has already been sent to Imo State. It would interest you also to know that the police commissioner that compromised the election in Adamawa State has also been posted to Imo State to do the same hatchet job. And we have written to the police service commission protesting. So, we will win the election any day any time if it is free and fair, but with all these compromised persons there, I doubt if anybody can do anything.
How is LP preparing for the final battle at the Supreme Court?
We have confidence in the Supreme Court. In fact, I applaud the steps they have taken. I am even talking on the lower level now, because most of the cases at the appeal have now been moved from the whole of South to Lagos and the whole of the North have now been moved to Abuja, so, the shenanigans we saw at the tribunal may not repeat itself. So, we hope that some of our members that were thrown out by the tribunal would bring them back. You saw in our earlier statement where in the same place, the same constituency, the tribunal judge overseeing the state assembly gave judgment based on the BVAS, but the one that presided over that of the governorship election refused to look at the BVAS. So, these are the critical issues. That was why when someone asked why we are talking about it, I said we have to keep shouting so that if eventually they take it from us, the precedent would have been set that the BVAS is no longer needed in elections. So, we are very optimistic about the Supreme Court that they would do the right thing concerning the presidential election because evidence before us shows that we scored the highest vote cast and we can prove it.
APC and others have begun quiet grassroots mobilisation against future elections, what’s LP doing in this regard?
No. We will not be in a hurry until we are done with 2023. We want to reclaim our mandate. You do not build on nothing. We have been robbed and we want to be sure that this one has been exhausted completely before we now begin to think about future elections, but one thing, we are sure of is that the Labour Party has become a household name. It has become a strong name by the virtue of our followership. You can see that we are not pushovers. Our members have not left us, we are getting more members every day. People now know that we are a victim of that institution called Nigeria. So, we will talk about 2027 when the time comes.