Ex-minister throws Tinubu under the bus for promising to equate Naira in value to the Dollar

The 2023 APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, has been stridently criticized for promising that, if elected, his administration will make the Naira to be at par with the US Dollar.

Describing it as a mere campaign gimmick which cannot fly, a chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party in Akwa Ibom State and former Minister of Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Chief Nduese Essien, said the APC flagbearer has no such magic wand to turn the Naira around to equate in value with the Dollar.

Summarily, he is of the view that Tinubu has nothing new to offer after his party could not fulfill the promises it made to Nigerians in 2015 when he brought retired Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari on board.

“Tinubu made this kind of promise in 2015 when he was campaigning for Muhammadu Buhari, and seven years down the line, he couldn’t show the president how to appreciate the Naira.

“Why then should anybody with knowledge of how the global economy works, believe him?

“That’s how it started in 2014, leading to the opposition against President Goodluck Jonathan on how the Naira will be at par with the USA Dollar if Buhari is voted to power,” Persecondnews quotes Essien as saying.

According to him, Tinubu’s claim is unrealistic, given the fact that he may likely follow the economic path of Buhari, if voted into power.

The term House of Representatives member, who chaired the South South caucus of the National Assembly from 1999 to 2003 berated the Buhari administration of which Tinubu is co-traveller, for the abysmal depreciation of the Naira from where they met it at 150 to present day value of 610 to a dollar.

“Why has Tinubu failed to assist President Buhari in arresting the steady fall of the Naira against other international currencies but waiting until he becomes President in 2023 before he miraculously intervened?

“International currencies are not manipulated the way Bola Tinubu surreptitiously took the Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited Headquarters to Lagos away from its area of operations to the detriment of the Oil Producing Areas and has continued to sustain its maintenance there despite all the protests from the rest of the country and in keeping with international best practice.

“Tinubu cannot be trusted because as the leader of the All Progressives Congress, the party has failed the country in all its campaign promises.

“He has nothing new to offer the nation” the APC chieftain also asserted.