Bunmi Awoyemi: How Buhari is reducing the poverty that GEJ created
According to Punch, a World Bank Enterprise Survey showed that during the GEJ/PDP administration between 2009 and 2014 the “harsh business environment in Nigeria forced about 322 organised private companies to close shop.”
Punch also reported that the World Bank survey also revealed that “out of 5,833 firms sampled in the country within the period, at least1,136 were reported to be at the risk of closing down.”
Yet some people call GEJ a hero. Some people have also called for a return of the “good old days” that GEJ/PDP allegedly gave Nigeria. When looting happens with impunity in a country it is bad but when the brains of some people have also been looted along with the commonwealth of Nigeria, what do you do?
Rather than study the statistics and get sober, they are busy blasting fake news up and down about a phantom “good old days.”
Let us not forget that a one man riot led by one of their fifth term senators cornered 300 NDDC contracts but did not do any of the jobs despite being paid 80% of the contract sums up front. That one man riot was an expert manager at the NDDC despite being a sitting Nigerian Senator. He may be their second hero after GEJ.
BUHARI’S IMPACT
In the World Bank’s “Ease of Doing Business Ranking,” we moved up 25 places in 2017. We were 170th but moved to 145th in 2017. In 2019 we moved up 15 places. When you add 25 to 15, it means that between 2017 and 2019 we have moved up 40 places. This is the change I voted for. This is drastic metamorphosis from the harsh business environment GEJ and the PDP created between 2009 and 2014.
Dunlop, Bata, Leventis and so many of the major companies which closed down during the PDP locust years have begun to make a come-back. Nigeria is now truly open for business.
Bunmi Awoyemi, Ph.D