By Abbanobi -Eku Onyekachi Abuja
Although he observed that a lot of things has gone bad before President Ahmed Bola Tinubu came on board, but the former Police Service Commission (PSC) chairman, Chief Simon Okeke has raised the alarm over hyper inflation in Nigeria, saying that the interest and foreign exchange rates and prices of goods and services have continued to rise beyond imagination, to the detriment of Nigerians. These, he said needed urgent attentions, before things get out of hands.
The elder states man addressed journalists recently in his office over the weekend, while marking Democracy Day.
“Well, as for President Tinubu’s assessment in his one year in office, a lot of things has gone wrong before he came on board and I am still watching his improvement or lessening the budden of the past bad governance. It isn’t clear to me that things are getting better, rather, one will say, things are getting worst. Possibly, not because of Tinubu, but because of the fact that there are some aspects of the country you can’t control.
Prices are going higher and higher; interest rates are moving up and up, making cost of living and development very high; exchange rate is worsening daily, and one could say that, the rise in the exchange rate started at Mr President’s inaugural speech; when he said that he has withdrawn fuel subsidy; making the price of fuel to go to the sky, and at the same time withdrew the support of the Naira, as against the Dollar and other currencies; therefore worsening the value of Naira, making prices of goods and services above the rich of the people. Things are really bad and I hope they will improve,” he prayed.
While hailing Mr President for improvement in roads and building of residential place of the vice president, the Ochendo Amichi however advised Nigerians to continue to hope in God, even as he suggests that perhaps God wants to use the condition in the country to teach Nigerians some lessons of sanity.
Speaking on the impasse between the government and the workers, he said: “The increase in the minimum wage being demanded by the organised labour wasn’t caused by Tinubu, but by the high cost of things. Let’s hope that the issue of minimum wage is settled amicably. I wonder how much that should be paid to a person, for him/her to live well.”
Reacting to the decision of Mr President to send an executive Bill to the senate, to decide the minimum wage, Okeke wondered if the senate has the power to do so, even as he asked: “If the senate is to decide the minimum wage for workers, who decided their own?”
Stating that each senator and house member receives about N30 million and N20 million monthly, he however wondered why should somebody who lives in the same country with them and goes in the same market as they, will be receiving N30 thousand. “What kind of country is that? It is criminal, to say the least,” he queried?
On the call for reduction of the pays of the legislators, so as to be able to pay the workers, he queried: “Are the National Assembly members, the ones to decide their pays? Is there no separate body that decides that? How can? I remember when I was in service, during the time of Obasanjo, there was a body that decided what we earned, likewise that of the president. What has happened to that body? Something is wrong and we should go back to the drawing board.”