Dr. Fredrick Fasehun, the founder and President of the Oodua People’s Congress, OPC and the National Chairman of the Unity Party of Nigeria, UPN has blasted the President’s administration, characterizing his reign as one filled with negative effects on the country and its citizens.
Dr. Fasehun made ths known to press men during a press conference on Tuesday.
The full text of the Press conference reads below:
‘FUEL HIKE AND OTHER MATTERS’
Gentlemen of the Press:
It is out of the depth of concern for our beloved country that we have invited you to this Press Conference.
If truth be told, the last one year of the regime of President Muhammadu Buhari and the All People’s Congress (APC), has witnessed unprecedented change, in line with the CHANGE mantra of the current ruling party that used to be the opposition party. Unfortunately, the change so far has headed downhill, with Nigeria having her domestic issues amplified and magnified negatively.
The Naira is at its all-time low. Inflation has spiralled to an all-time high. When Buhari took over last year, a sachet of pure water went for N5, but now it sells for between N10 and N15. The Nigerian Naira has diminished among world currencies.
As against N205 in the parallel market when Buhari took over on May 29, 2015, the Naira today exchanges for N385 against $1, and N505 against £1. Importers are starved of foreign exchange. Nigeria has never had it this bad.
Worse still is that the petroleum industry/commodity which supplies the available foreign exchange is on the official counter being starved of foreign exchange to import products for local consumption.
There is famine in the land. How can tomato sell at N100 per fruit, 1,000 percent rise above its price last year? How can rice jump from N10,000 last year to N14,000 currently? N200 paint-bucket measure of garri is now N600? Yet our leaders pretend that all is well.
Mr. President, don’t let your advisers deceive you; Nigeria has degenerated since you took over; the lives of Nigerians are harder; living standards have fallen.
Slowly and gradually, we have witnessed the expansion of the theatre of violence beyond Boko Haram in the North-East to the rampant Fulani herdsmen attacks in the Middle-Belt, South-South, South-West and South-East. Militants have staged a resurgence of hostilities and pipeline vandalism in the Niger-Delta. From nowhere less than the Presidency comes the startling revelation that Nigeria is suffering invasion from mercenaries displaced from war-torn Libya.
The fact that the President is a Fulani by birth therefore no one will begrudge him if he shows some tilt towards his Fulani background, but not at the expense of other Nigerians. That Fulani herdsmen carrying AK47 rifles will openly brandish their weapons in the midst of innocent Nigerians sends a signal of the superiority of a class of people not authorised to bear weapons.
On the international scene, Nigeria has been dressed with the toga of FANTASTICALLY CORRUPT COUNTRY and our President has officially agreed.
Everyone knows that corruption in Nigeria defies partisanship; yet the impression one gets is that APC is a safe haven for corrupt politicians. Everyone in APC is being sheltered from prosecution despite extant investigations indicting APC chieftains, some of whom are in the President’s cabinet.
Meanwhile, Mr. President is playing cowboy, riding his anti-corruption horse against one part of the field, showing interest in roping and silencing members of the opposition. But every democracy needs a strong opposition. That President Goodluck Jonathan allowed the opposition to flourish may be his greatest undoing, but it also succeeded in strengthening and deepening our democracy, making it a model for developing nations. President Buhari must give the opposition breathing space and allow opposition to flourish for the benefit of Nigeria’s democracy.
In the financial sector, new and strange bank charges are making nonsense of savings. Even at the stock exchange, investments have become dwindled and grossly devalued. Unemployment has risen. Job losses in the usually rosy banking industry, the capital market and the oil industry have become rampant and inflicted these sectors with job insecurity and company closures.
The Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) completely supports the call by the civil society groups and the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) that government must revert to the old pump price of N86.50 or face a national strike beginning from Wednesday. Demonstrations and strikes are the people’s constitutional right and, if the government fails to do the needful, the people shall exercise that right from Wednesday as we did the Jonathan government in 2014.
OPC will be part of the strike. And OPC urges Nigerians to join the strike. This strike may be our last opportunity to speak to power. It must not fail or else Nigeria and the Buhari regime are doomed to years of misrule and failure.
Meanwhile, we seize this opportunity to tell the police and other security forces to avoid being used as instruments of oppression and coercion against the Nigerian people. Throughout the duration of the strikes and demonstrations, the Inspector General of Police and the Service Chiefs must ensure that no single case of shooting, tear-gassing, harassment, intimidation or arrest of peaceful demonstrators occurs.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Press: Thank you for your attention