National Chairman of LP, Alhaji Abdukadir Abdulsalam, who described the move as cosmetic, said yesterday in Abuja that the President’s action is not the most important factor that would solve Nigeria’s problems.
He said, “What would the salary cut do for the Nigerian poor masses? Buhari should address the realities of the situation and stop playing to the gallery. This is a populist action. What he needs to do is to see where there are wastages and block them, serious act of corruption still goes on and he need to take serious action.”The Labour Party boss said what President Buhari should do is to harness the resources that can help add to the monolithic oil economic policy the nation operates, saying that the president should harness the extent to which Nigeria Custom and other organisations can block the leakages and generate more fund for the government so that the economy can be growing and become more robust.
He said: “He should not be wasting his time cutting his salary. If he is cutting his salary, is he also cutting his security votes, is he cutting the monumental expenditure in the Presidential Villa in the name of running government, is he cutting down the number of fleets in the presidential convoy or the aircraft?
Is he cutting down the number of foreign travels that he has commenced? This are some of the areas he should act and seen to act upon.”
While speaking on the fuel subsidy removal the Labour Party boss urged the President to be more forthcoming on details of the issues, adding that if Nigerians did not know the details in the past, they can still know now and that for the President to simply say he is not removing subsidy to avoid punishing the poor is ambiguous.
“What happen to the June promise that one or two of the refineries would start working? Nigerians would appreciate him when they know the constraint he is facing in righting the wrong and this should be applicable to the subsidy controversy.
He has to get the refineries working as promised during the campaigns. If this is achieved, he can remove subsidy, even at that who would be talking about subsidy if the refineries are working again?
