Faced with a rash of crit­icisms from Nigerians over its lacklustre per­formance after over a year in office, the ruling All Progres­sives Congress (APC) has ad­mitted that it cannot fix the country’s ailing economy overnight.

The party said that it was elected by Nigerians to do the impossible, stressing that it has no magic wand to do that immediately as expected by the electorate.

Prominent Nigerians, in­cluding the Emir of Kano, Al­haji Sanusi Lamido Sanusi II, former Central Bank of Ni­geria (CBN) governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo and em­inent priest, Anthony Car­dinal Okogie, had recently criticised the Federal Gov­ernment’s economic policies and asked President Muhammadu Buhari to retrace his steps.

Sanusi, a former CBN Governor, said the coun­try’s economy was being run aground by “voodoo econo­mists”, demagogues and oth­er “unqualified, unlicensed drivers”. He urged Buhari to retrace his steps or risk ending up in the same way as the pre­vious administration which his government was busy blaming for their own woes.

While Soludo asked the APC to deliver the change it promised, or forget re-elec­tion in 2019, Cardinal Okogie, in a personal letter he wrote to the President, said that Nige­rians are suffering and urged Buhari to act fast.

In an apparent reaction to these mounting criticisms, the leadership of the APC on Tuesday in Abuja pleaded for patience, declaring that the economic challenges facing the country were enormous.

Through its Deputy Na­tional Chairman, Chief Seg­un Oni, the APC said that Ni­gerians must exercise patience with it in getting the economy back on track.

Oni told reporters at the party’s secretariat yesterday in Abuja that the APC in­herited a battered economy from the past administration of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), declaring that it would take time to revive the economy.

Oni, a former Governor of Ekiti State, linked money-bag politicians whose intent was to destabilise the Buhari ad­ministration, to the incessant attacks and invasion of com­munities by Fulani herdsmen.

He admitted that the pub­lic was right to have expect­ed quick fixes for the econ­omy, but said that in reality, there was no magic way out of Nigeria’s present econom­ic problem.

His words: “Well, the pub­lic is right to expect magic from us, but the truth is that there is no magical way out of the problem on ground for Nigeria. The economy was traumatised by a government whose only agenda was to win another round, therefore, eve­rything that they could put into trying to win a second round, even bastardising the economy, were done and we are all in this mess.

“Now, fortunately for them, I would say, they are not there any longer. The re­ality on ground is that if the previous government were in power by now, Nigeria would have packed up; may be many of us would have been refu­gees. So, it is very easy not to remember where we are com­ing from.
“Yes, we were elected to do the impossible; we will do our best; I just want to plead that people should give us more time.

“This economy must work; we must get Nigeria back, but it is not as quick as anybody imagined. So, people are entitled to their expecta­tions; we as a government will do our best to ensure that the end would justify the means. We are not elected to run Nigeria for one year or two years; we are elected to run Nigeria for four years and be­fore we get to an appreciable length of time, I am sure that we would begin to see very obvious changes”.

On the rampaging Fula­ni herdsmen, Oni said that “this, personally worries me because these gunmen who suddenly became so notori­ous and invading villages are people that have always been around. But my guess is that many of them are sponsored by people.

“I believe that many of these herdsmen’s killings have political motives and people who just want to trouble the government of the day, who don’t want peace because they believe peace would also not be what they would want to see. It is very difficult for you to just hear one version today, another striking us there to­morrow like organised snip­ers and so on. It is also a way of saying that what we are bat­tling with is not ordinary.”

The APC Chieftain was, however, quick to stress that the APC-led Federal Govern­ment has scored a pass mark in terms of the fight against security challenges, even as he stressed that Boko Haram in­surgents have been decimat­ed and that Nigerians should support the security agencies to consolidate on the success achieved so far in ending the activities of the terrorists.

Reacting to President Bu­hari’s resolve to treat the Ni­ger Delta militants the way he handled Boko Haram, he said:
“I think it is a warning; you know at times a father would also warn his child not to cross this line so that ‘I would not be hard on you’.”