The All Progressives Congress has dismissed Nigeria’s rebased Gross Domestic Product as a mindless public relations gimmick of the Federal Government.
The party, in a statement in Washington DC, United States, by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, on Thursday said the Federal Government had only succeeded in ridiculing itself.
But the Federal Government insisted that the emergence of Nigeria as the largest economy in Africa would guarantee prosperous future for Nigerian youths
On its part, the APC noted that the GDP rebasing was done after a World Bank report declared Nigeria as one of the countries harbouring the largest population of poor people in the world.
It said it was obvious that the exercise was the government’s response to the classification.
The opposition party stated, “The Federal Government has only succeeded in opening itself to ridicule. This is because if ever there was a clear play at oxymoron, this is it: The largest economy with the largest population of the poor; the largest economy with the largest population of unemployed; the largest economy with the largest population of citizens living in darkness, and the largest economy with the worst infrastructure.”
The party said there was too much poverty in the midst of plenty, adding that the economic growth, which the government had been trumpeting, was not a result of any deliberate government policies.
It stated that government policies were expected to result in the reduction of unemployment, increase in capacity utilisation by manufacturers and access to basic needs of life.
The APC said the Federal Government carried its joke too far by giving the impression that the emergence of the Nigerian economy as the largest in Africa was a function of the economic policies under the Goodluck Jonathan-led administration.
It stated that it was the function of “re-jigging of figures, calibrated to fool an unsuspecting public.”
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