Amaechi: Nigeria will go 10 steps backwards if APC loses in 2019

February 15, 2018 7:28 pm

Rotimi Amaechi, minister of transportation, says if the All Progressives Congress (APC) loses the 2019 election, Nigeria will be taken 10 steps backwards.

The minister said this while speaking with select journalists in Abuja on Thursday.

Amaechi said the APC government needs another four years to surmount the challenges it met in office.

While admitting that the Buhari administration has made mistakes, he said that the president “is eliminating corruption.”

“For any reason we lose election, you the young ones are taking yourselves and Nigeria 10 steps backwards because the elites who left to through PDP are waiting in the wind,” the minister said.

“Are we perfect? No. No human is perfect. Are there mistakes? Yes. There is no human being who doesn’t make mistake. Are we on course? Yes. Are the challenges daunting? Yes. Are we going to overcome them? Yes.

“I hope Nigerians remember that by the time we came, we were borrowing money to pay salaries. I hope you people remember that we are not paying money to pay salaries, we are using our money.

“If we are not borrowing to pay salaries, it means we are generating our own money. I hope Nigerians remember under the past government oil was at 110, 120. But when we came oil was $58. The highest that we have gotten is the mistake that happened in the last two weeks that it rose to 70 or 80 after one day it came down to 50-something, instantly.”

Amaechi said in the buildup to the 2015 election, Buhari called him to consider a strategy for reducing the expectations of Nigerians from an APC government.

“The problem was the expectations. Most of you, in fact, the president got worried and he called me and said ‘Amaechi go and think of how we reduce the expectation’ but I said, ‘Oga I’m not a magician’,” the minister said.

“That we will bring down the price of fuel, that is determined by market forces. What we are rather doing is what the president said. One reason our economy is not growing is lack of infrastructure.”