A former National Youth Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Ismail Ahmed, has ruled out the chances of Nigerians publicly stoning President Bola Tinubu, APC leaders and government officials out of frustration with the state of things in the country.
According to him, all hope is not lost, and Nigerians would listen to the leaders and trust the process.
Naijaonpoint reports that Ahmed made the submission on Tuesday during an interview on Channels Television, in which he spoke about the performance of the Tinubu administration within its first two years in office.
Asked by the anchor to justify what the APC-led government has done for Nigerians in the past two years, to avert getting stoned, the party stalwart said the APC and President Tinubu have saved Nigeria from bankruptcy.
He said the hope and expectations of Nigerians have not been dashed by the current administration, and while the expectations of some citizens have not been met, the government still has another two years to deliver on its promises.
Ahmed justified the increased borrowings by the Tinubu administration, noting that the funds are not being wasted or embezzled, but are being channelled to infrastructural developments in the country, and Nigerians can see the evidence of several monumental projects getting completed.
According to him, despite complaints from some quarters about issues such as economic hardship, insecurity, and rising hunger in the country, which they attributed to the president’s ill-conceived policies, the APC-led Tinubu government has not performed poorly in its first two years in office.
“I think Nigerians will give us the benefit of the doubt and listen to us. It is not a dashed hope yet.
We have saved this country from bankruptcy. Everyone, be it a business corporate organization or a country, most especially, a country, has to run on a debt. Now debt can be a sustainable debt, can be a debt where you borrow to invest in your infrastructure, borrow to invest in your enabling structures, to be able to bring in more businesses so that people will get jobs, that’s one thing.
It’s another thing for you to borrow to spend, and pay salaries and eat it and have it fizzled away by corruption and spend it on nonsense that can go on. But right now, what we are borrowing is we are borrowing to invest in our infrastructure and that started from Buhari, and you know that very well. We finished a lot of infrastructure that looked like it wasn’t going to finish. And look at what we are doing everywhere under this administration, so to me, I don’t think we are doing too badly.”
He, however, emphasised the need to keep the people better informed about government policies. activities and programmes so that people would have a better understanding of what is going on in the country.
“But I understand perception. Let me make it very clear that I understand the bottom line of people, a lot of people are not happy, that’s why I said we need to do more than just sit in rooms and do endorsements that are absolutely unnecessary and are not required,” the APC chieftain added.