Prof Udenta Udenta, a founding national secretary of Alliance for Democracy (AD), has called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to dump the ideas being forced on the country by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in order to pull Nigeria out of its current economic challenges.
He gave this advice while speaking about the first anniversary of President Tinubu’s administration on Channels Television’s political programme, Sunday Politics.
“There is no help coming from IMF or Washington Consensus. They want to beat the state down, they want the state to keep coming back to them so that they can impose their structural adjustment programmes,” he alleged.
He said though the government had entered the IMF’s trap, it was not too late to get out of it.
He said the government should balance liberalism, and privatisation with the socialist function of government.
Prof Udenta also called on the president to form a government of unity and seek help from his political opponents to move the country forward.
When asked to advise the president on the way forward, the ex-AD scribe said, Tinubu should seek help.
“There is nothing shameful about looking for help. The country is in trauma, the nation is in distress. That means his presidency is in trouble. The first help will come from his political opponents,” he said.
Prof Udenta posited that Tinubu is not so popular, stressing that he didn’t win up to 40 per cent of votes from a very small segment of Nigerians who voted during the last presidential election.
He also said when the supporters of Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar noticed the president was consulting their political leaders, they might start supporting his policies and give him the needed time to turn things around.