Senator Orji Kalu says President Bola Tinubu is aware of the country’s fluttering economy and is taking steps to address the challenges facing Nigeria.
“The president himself knows that Nigerians are suffering and hungry. He is a street person; he knows the street very well,” Senator Kalu said on Thursday’s edition of Channels Television’s Politics Today.
“The president some nights uses his car to go around and know what is happening in Abuja here. The president goes around with one or two cars and sees what is happening. He is not a president that is locked up in the room.”
The country’s inflation figures hit 32.7 per cent in September 2024, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
Since the removal of the fuel subsidy and the floating of the naira by the Tinubu government, the cost of basic items has moved beyond the reach of millions of Nigerians.
But Senator Kalu argued that the moves were “very courageous” of Tinubu and that the economic hardship is not peculiar to Nigeria. He said the country is also battling from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic which grossly affected the global economy.
“The pressure of COVID-19 has not gone,” he said.
“Let me be honest with you. I know things are not the way they are supposed to be,” the Abia North lawmaker added.
“The economy has not been so friendly; the atmosphere has not been so friendly. But this economic problem is going on almost everywhere in the world.”
Senator Kalu said the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) which he belongs to is doing well in repositioning the economy.
“They are trying to reform the economy. They are trying to bring back the economy where it is supposed to be.”
‘These Things Are Not True’
Nigerians have repeatedly accused members of the National Assembly and the ruling class of being insensitive to the plight of the people, claiming they live in affluence despite the state of the economy.
The Abia North lawmaker, however, says the lawmakers have no official vehicles.
“I am in the Senate and a lot of things are said about the Senators and I sit there quietly and watch, and most of these things are not true. All I know is that committees get vehicles, no lawmaker is given any vehicle,” the Senator said.