APC, PDP lack solution to economic problems –SPN

Gbenga Adeniji

The Socialist Party of Nigeria has said the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government and the Peoples Democratic Party lack the solution to the economic challenges confronting the country.

The party said many Nigerians did not expect the present economic hardship under a government that one year ago rode into power on the promise of change.

Addressing journalists in Lagos on Wednesday, the National Chairman of the SPN, Segun Sango, said the Buhari government had caused inflation and growing poverty in the country.

He said Buhari would not meet the aspirations of Nigerians because of the capitalist policies and programmes of the government.

Sango said that civil unrests and militants’ activities had brought to the fore the undemocratic nature of the country and the unresolved nationality questions since the amalgamation of 1914 under Lord Lugard.

He said, “What the sordid state of affairs has so far revealed is that the Buhari-led Federal Government and the respective state governments controlled by the APC, the PDP, and the All Progressive Grand Alliance lack the capacity to resolve the myriad of economic problems and hardship confronting the country.

“In view of all these, we wish to reiterate our stance that only a nationalised, planned economy under a democratic management of workers and consumers could develop the economy and create massive jobs. Otherwise, the collective resources of the society will continue to go into private pockets.”

The SPN chairman called on the organised labour to demand the “nationalisation of the commanding sectors of the economy including oil and gas, solid mineral resources, banking, etc. to be placed under people and public ownership.”

The party said it had become expedient that the Nigeria Labour Congress organised a sustained mass action in response to the unpaid salary crisis starting with a one-day warning public sector strike.

Sango said, “The NLC should begin the struggle for an increment in workers’ salaries across board to enable workers to meet the challenges posed by the rising cost of living. The N18,000 minimum wage is not only a poverty wage; it is an aberration.

“The NLC must ensure that any wage template that must be agreed upon should be a living wage and must be increased in line with subsequent inflationary trend.

“The NLC should demand the reduction of unjustified jumbo allowances by political office holders across board as we do not see the logic wherein an extreme few will earn jumbo salaries while the vast majority are condemned to poverty wages.”