By our reporter| In response to the comment credited to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar on the unemployment situation in the country, the presidency on Sunday described him as part of the rot Nigeria has become.
Atiku was quoted to have said that Nigeria is fast degenerating to a failed state.
“I have never felt so bad at being proven right, as I am by the report from Bloomberg Business on Saturday, March 27, 2021, that Nigeria is to emerge as the nation with the highest unemployment rate on Earth, at just over 33%.
“We warned about this, but repeated warnings by myself and other patriots were scorned. And now this. We are at a precipice as a nation and the truth is that all stakeholders and elder statesmen have to speak up on time, while there is still a Nigeria to save, the presidential canditate of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party was quoted to have said over the weekend.
“This government obviously lacks the capacity to address our current challenges, and we must help them, not because of the government, but because of our people.
“In a situation where we are simultaneously the world headquarters for extreme poverty, the world capital for out of school children, and the nation with the highest unemployment rate on Earth, there is a very real and present danger that we might slip into the failed states index – God forbid!”
But speaking in an interview on Channels TV Sunday Politics, presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina said what Atiku said about 30 million Nigerians out of job was not new.
According to Adesina, in the build-up to the 2015 elections, when the APC was campaigning, the figure that was used by Buhari was that a minimum of 30 million Nigerians were unemployed, particularly youths and that his government was going to do something about it.
Atiku, he said, should not make it appear like a genie that just came out of the bottle, as the statistics had always been there.
He further stated that Atiku was in power for eight years, and that as an oppostion politician, whatever he says should not be treated as gospel.
He said the question is “when Abubakar was in government with President Olusegun Obasanjo, where did they take the country? Where did they leave the country?”
“Former Vice-President is part of the rot this country became. He cannot exculpate himself; he cannot sit in judgment over anybody. He played his part for eight years and they left the country where they left it,” he said.
According to him, Atiku could not like Pontius Pilate, begin to wash himself clean of what Nigeria has become.
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