Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, has assured that the mistake of 2015 and the attendant hardship would be remedied in 2019, “to make Nigeria work again”.
He gave the assurance in his acceptance speech at the weekend during the 2017 Silverbird Awards, where he received the Silverbird Legislative Award in Lagos.
Ekweremadu was quoted in a statement by his media aide, Uche Anichukwu, as reacting to an earlier speech by the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, in which he acknowledged that Nigerians were passing through hard times.
He however observed that the House Leader failed to tell Nigerians how things got so bad and how the All Progressives Congress (APC) government intended to pull Nigerians out of the hardship.
He said: “My friend, Hon. Gbajabiamila, admitted that we are passing through difficult times, but he did not go to the extent of telling us how we got there. We have over a hundred students in Yobe, who are now in the forests. We are not sure whether they had food this night. We are not sure of their health situation.
“He didn’t tell us that we have thousands of Nigerians, who are out of school.
“He didn’t tell us how eight million Nigerians, who lost their jobs in 17 months, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, will regain their jobs. He didn’t tell us how we could regain our glory before the international community in terms of fighting corruption. He didn’t tell us how water would flow from our taps again or how power would be restored.
“He didn’t tell us how fuel would get into our cars because today, our filling stations are on the streets- in jerry cans. And they call them APC fillings stations”.
Ekweremandu, however, assured that the bad situations would be fixed in 2019.