Governor Atiku Bagudu of Kebbi State on Tuesday berated the pro-revolution protesters, describing it as unnecessary and lacking in focus.
The Governor, who is the Chairmen of the All Progressive Congress APC Governors’ Forum and deputy National Chairman of the National Food Security, said the current democratic system gives every Nigerian an opportunity to exercise their franchise, every four years.
“Any calls for disorder in a democratic setting are condemnable because the democracy as the saying goes may not be the best form of government but it is the best that we have, because it gives opportunity periodically for the electorates to exercise their franchise in affirming or rejecting leaders.”
The Governor, speaking with State House Correspondents after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday, counselled the “Global Coalition for Security and Democracy in Nigeria,” organizers of the “Revolution” protest against truncating the nation’s democracy.
Bagudu attributed the current economic situation to persistent low revenue from the nation’s main source of foreign exchange, crude oil, adding that “money available to government has fallen dramatically, so the money available for us to police our country provide for the welfare of our citizens and meet critical needs has reduced significantly.”
“Every elected representative whether councillor, chairman of local government, Members of House of Assembly, Federal House of Representatives and Senate, Deputy Governor or Governor and Vice President or President, whenever you go around your constituency, you are going to face more demand for governmental services which in other forms of government would not be so,. This also add to the pressure to do more.”
He stated that government is “doing more with little,” adding that despite the lower revenue, Nigeria has progressive policies, under the current administration.
“We have recovered from recession in the shortest possible time, in spite of the lower revenue, infrastructural works are taking place in various part of the country, even those that have been inherited by the administration are taking place.”
He also cited the current social intervention programmes aimed at addressing frustration faced by Nigerians.
He declared that while Brazil with a population of about 210 million is budgeting as high as $657b, Nigeria with a population of about 200 million, has a budget of less than $30b.
“This is not a fault of one particular administration; this is the size of our economy.
“Even amongst African countries, the size of our budget is small. South Africa with much less population has a budget of close to a $100 billion, so we can see that the size of our economy matters.
“Secondly, our ability to get support from the rest of the world, particularly in economic downturn is limited by the fact that we are a sub-Saharan nation. A good example is Greece which receives support from the European Union in excess of €300billion. That is not a sum of money any African country can get.
“We are a bigger population, bigger economy but we don’t receive such money. Ireland, another European nation gets support from the European Union to get them out of economic crisis in excess of €200billion. Nigeria is not so lucky; we have not received support of €10billion but of course we have borrowed more, we have issued Eurobonds.
Tony Ailemen, Abuja.
