Opeyemi Bamidele, the Senate Leader has stated that the worsening economic crisis is worrisome but the Tinubu-led administration has taken certain measures that would yield positive results in the future.
Bamidele also pointed fingers at past governments for the inflation and economic challenges plaguing the nation.
Bamidele, who represents Ekiti Central, made these remarks during a media interaction after commissioning a digital library and other development projects in his senatorial district in Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State.
The Senate Leader emphasized that the Tinubu administration inherited a struggling economy and is implementing measures to address these longstanding issues.
He urged Nigerians to be patient and supportive of the government’s efforts to turn the economy around.
Bamidele said, “The current situation in Nigeria is worrisome, but it is not a situation that started yesterday. The only difference between what we have now and what we had before is that we have a government that is not pretentious about our economic situation.
“We have a government that is sincere with the people, and we have a government that has the courage to take certain economic decisions, even though they might have some temporary or momentary hardship coming within, will ultimately take us to the best level for economic breakthrough and prosperity.
“In the last 10 years, the government had been pretending in this country about the state of our economy and without telling the people the truth about it.
“We had a government that printed money, a government that will just order the Central Bank to print money, and that is part of what is responsible for the inflation that is staring at us in the face now. But, we have a government today that will say no more oil subsidy.
“We have a government that will say only one window is enough for our forex services. We have a government that will say let us not deceive ourselves; let everyone go back to the farm in addition to whatever you are doing, so these are some of the things.
“But, part of what differentiates this government from what we had in the past, is that today, we have a government that is saying it cannot afford to make 78 percent of our annual budget go into recurrent expenditure. Rather, we have a situation where almost 50 percent of our budget is going to capital expenditure. It is when the government spends money on capital expenditure that money can percolate through the people, and that is what will stimulate our economy.”
He disclosed that the parliament last week passed four executive bills he sponsored in one day before going on recess.Bamidele said; “We are doing all we can to ensure that we help the executive arm. On Tuesday, when we were rounding up for this parliamentary year because we are now on recess, we passed four bills in one day, the National Minimum Wage Bill, taking salary from the budgetary sum of N30,000 to N70,000 and you can be rest assured that we agreed on N 70, 000 with the executive arm and when I say the executive arm, I mean both the Federal Government represented by the President as well as the 36 states represented by the governors and labour unions.
“The Federal Government will pay much more but we have to take the states into consideration. It would be sacrilegious on the part of everybody to pass a bill on the minimum wage that our states cannot afford; that will compel the states to retrench workers which no sane governor is willing to do at this point, so we have arrived at a minimum wage where the states can still manage to survive and pay their workers without retrenching them and without closing their eyes to employment opportunities for the people.
“We also passed the 2024 Appropriation Act Amendment Bill as well as Finance Act Amendment Bill and finally, we also passed a Bill that will make it possible for the Inspector General of Police to serve his full term of four years regardless of how close to retirement he was when he was appointed, so all of these we are doing as a parliament to ensure that we encourage the executive arm of government and support them.
“So, those who criticised your representative, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, for sponsoring the National Anthem Bill and for passing it in one day, I hope they will also remember that your representative also sponsored those four executive bills and all the four of them were passed in one day and by the grace of God, we will continue to do our best.”
On what informed his decision to build the digital library, he said: “Well, I am a product of knowledge, let me just put it that way. We struggled to get educated. We had to study sometimes under the trees, sometimes in people’s balconies, sometimes at the back of the classrooms without electricity to study before darkness comes.”
