A former presidential spokesman, Dr Doyin Okupe has welcomed the criticism of the socio-economic challenges in the country by the pan-Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere but dismissed the description that the economy is almost collapsing as unfounded.
The Yoruba group had on Wednesday in a communique issued at the the end of its quarterly meeting held in Ogun State expressed concern over what it described as the near collapse of the economy.
Afenifere in the communique signed by Deputy Leader, Chief Oladipo Olaitan and Deputy Secretary-General, Mr Alade Rotimi-John noted that the state of the economy had left the people perplexed with hardship.
Reacting to Afenifere’s criticism in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Lagos, Okupe, a former director-general of the Peter Obi Presidential Campaign Organisation, said the present economic indicators showed that the nation’s economy was beginning to make a recovery and an obvious turnaround was observable.
Okupe said that Afenifere’s criticism was belated.
“It is commendable that Afenifere, a pan-Yoruba socio-cultural organisation and now political group, has always lived to its nationalistic stance.
“This it does by criticising the government of the day even though a Yoruba man, Asiwaju Tinubu, is the current president of the country.
“This is one of the outstanding and commendable attributes of the Yoruba people as a race and Afenifere has been consistent in this patriotic display of true nationalism.
“However, while it is true that the country and its citizens are undergoing very harsh socio-economic conditions, principally because of strong and brave economic policies put in place to correct the economic quagmire brought on the country by the previous administration, economic indicators show that the economy is beginning to make a recovery and an obvious turnaround is now clearly observable”.
According to him, all hands must be on deck to support the administration to succeed in its efforts to revamp the economy.