Magnus Eze, Enugu
The coming months would be turbulent for Nigerians, President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief Nnia Nwodo, has said.
Nwodo said the failure of Nigerian leaders to take bold steps by restructuring the country and diversifying its economy, has brought untold hardships on the people following the collapse of oil prices in world market because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He stated that if Nigeria recovered from the health hazard after the pandemic, the trajectory of attention will change to the economics because people would find it difficult to feed with the attendant job loss. The Igbo leader noted that the country was currently a broke nation given that its 2020 budget capacity of $57 per barrel of oil was no more realisable as oil has fallen to between 25 and 27 dollars per barrel.
Regardless, Nwodo who spoke in a radio interview aired in Enugu, yesterday, expressed the optimism that the challenges of COVID-19 could throw up new set of leaders that would be creative and imaginative enough as to steer the ship of state from hitting the rock.
“We are going to go into a serious economic crisis. Many of the federal ministries and agencies will be closed because there is no capacity to meet the recurrent expenditure. You can’t pay salaries. Already pensions are not paid as at when due. So, with this unprecedented drop of expected revenue, what are you going to face? – A broke nation.”