You are responsible for Nigeria’s economic woes, Shehu Sani tells ex-CBN Gov Soludo

Barely a day after advising President Muhammadu Buhari on what his administration needed to do to salvage Nigeria’s economy, Charles Soludo, a former Central Bank governor, has come under fierce criticism from a Nigerian senator, Shehu Sani. Mr. Soludo can’t proffer solutions to Nigeria’s economic woes when it was his policies, as head of the apex bank, that brought the country to its terrible state, Mr. Sani said.

Mr. Soludo, who spoke on Thursday at the 4th lecture series of the Progressives Governors’ Forum in Kaduna, advised that, “The APC should go back to its manifesto and instigate framework that will engender the atmosphere for growth as Nigeria cannot develop with the current structure where institutions are created only to share from the federation account.”

He said it was better Mr. Buhari’s administration started thinking outside the box, rather than continue to blame the past government for the nation’s economic problems. On the current administration’s fight against corruption, the former CBN governor said: “I don’t believe the way we are fighting corruption is the way we should go about it. We are only fighting corruption on the surface; we have to fight it from the systemic level.”

But Mr. Sani, the All Progressives Congress senator, representing Kaduna Central, responded to Mr. Soludo’s advice, by saying that it would be too early to forget that his (Soludo’s) stewardship at the CBN was the foundation of the current economic crisis in Nigeria.

The senator, in an email sent to PREMIUM TIMES, Friday, said Mr. Soludo was entitled to his opinion, but that it was good to remind him of the role he played in bringing down the country’s economy. “If Soludo and his Government had actually implemented such lofty ideas of reforms, we couldn’t have found ourselves where we are today,” Mr. Sani said. “It’s too early to forget the legacy of cronyism, elitism and vindictiveness that occasioned the past administrations.

“Soludo was lucky to serve under a Government that was powered by $140 per barrel and without the headache, heartache and bloodshed that has become of Niger Delta and the north east. Soludo need to be reminded that most of those today on trial for stealing our public funds were the same people rooted in the Government he served before GEJ. Yes PMB is tackling the ‘symptoms of corruption,’ but the symptoms were there for 16 years.

“If Soludo and others have combated the symptoms, PMB could have now focused on the ailment. It’s not in contention that blame game by the PMB administration against GEJ must end but under PDP three Governments for 16 years, hardly a day passed without the same blame game on late Abacha.”

Mr. Sani also attacked the APC governors for inviting the former CBN governor to speak at the lecture series. “Those who invited Soludo did that to rubbish PMB’s economic policies that they don’t have the balls to do. What is the reason and the logic behind APC chieftains inviting a PDP economist to lecture them on the economy? The very party they consistently deride for ruining this country for ‘16 years’?”