A former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, on Tuesday, endorsed President Muhammadu Buhari’s stand against the devaluation of the naira.
He also said that Nigerian leaders spent more than half of their budget on non-productive sector of the economy.
Anyaoku spoke at the presentation of Ambassador Olusola Sanu’s memoirs Audacity on the Bound: A Diplomatic Odyssey at the Kakanfo Inn and Conference Centre, Ibadan, Oyo State.
He called on Buhari to maintain his stance and advise the President to assemble a team of economic experts on the issue.
He said, “A case has not been convincingly made that the devaluation of our Naira in our present circumstance will truly serve Nigeria’s national interest. President Muhammadu Buhari should, in my view, stick to his anti-devaluation position but he should also urgently appoint a team of knowledgeable economists to advise him on how to approach Nigeria’s current economic crisis.”
Anyaoku, however, stressed the need to take the nation out of its present economic crisis.
He bemoaned the present exploitation of the Nigeria presidential system by the new generation politicians, whom he blamed for the nation’s woes.
Anyaoku, who lamented massive corruption and growing poverty in the country, said modern-day politicians had been exploiting the gaps in the presidential system to defraud the nation.
He said, “The new generation of politicians have exploited the presidential system to operate a system that is a drain on the treasury. It is hard to believe that we now operate a system where we now have more than 3,000 advisers at the federal, state and local government levels.
“States that have no Internally Generated Revenue have more than 30 advisers, senior special assistants and their assistants.
“The shame of Nigeria is imminent that even the chairman of a local government area operates the presidential system as entitlement. They have chiefs of staff, chief protocol officer, press officer and so on.
“The result is that 30 to 40 per cent of our annual budget is spent on these officers. By the time you add other spending on transportation and travels, more than half of the budget is spent on non-productive sector of the economy.”
Eulogising Sanu for putting together his memoirs, Anyaoku said Nigeria’s diplomacy would be richer if experienced and retired diplomats wrote their memoirs.
He said, “From the crux of such memoirs, there will be no dearth of information on the country’s diplomatic effort.
“There is a high level of ignorance in South Africa about Nigeria’s support for the country’s anti-apartheid struggle. This ignorance broadly explains in part the reason for xenophobia in some parts of the (Southern African) country.
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