Festus Keyamo, the Spokesman for the President Buhari Campaign Organisation has said the current administration is not to be blamed for economy thrown into recession.
Keyamo spoke today while appearing as a guest on Channels Television’s breakfast show where he said, “nobody should wake up because of political reasons and say that it was when this government came on board that we slipped into recession”.
He argued that President Muhammadu Buhari inherited the recession from the previous administration in 2014. He explained that the Federal Government also inherited about 24 states that were considered bankrupt following their inability to pay salaries in 2015.
“At the point of handover in 2015, 24 states were almost bankrupt and could not pay salaries. Federal Government was borrowing to pay salaries at that point. The naira had begun the downward slide and at the time they handed over, it was N225 to a Dollar. So these are clear indices that there was something wrong and that we were headed to the bottom of a slope” he said.
Keyamo’s defence was in reaction to comments made by a former Vice President of the World Bank, Mrs Oby Ezekwesili, who blamed Nigeria’s recession on the failure of this current administration to initiate good economic policies.