Ekiti State governor Ayodele Fayose and his counterpart in Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola on Saturday disagreed on the controversy of selling the national assets to finance 2016 budget to salvage Nigeria from economic recession.
While Aregbesola was of the view that the nation’s "idle assets" should be sold to finance the budget, Fayose disagreed saying selling national assets amounts to auctioning Nigeria.
The duo expressed their views at a ceremony organised in Ado Ekiti by the Ekiti state government where Aregbesola delivered a keynote address as part of the activities to mark the 20th anniversary of creation of Ekiti State.
Aregbesola urged the Federal Government to sell off idle national assets and spare the functional ones. Besides, he urged aggressive effort on agriculture, concerted efforts to end oil pipeline vandalism and regional integration towards meaningful development.
"We should revive agriculture, especially food production. Agriculture gives us raw materials for industries and aids in no small measure in economic development. If we can improve on our productivity in food production through agriculture, we will eliminate hunger in our land.
But Fayose said, " I’m totally opposed to the sale of the national asset, as selling the national asset is like selling Nigeria at give -away price: selling our national assets simply amounts to auctioning Nigeria. If we sell the assets because the country is in recession, what would be left of Nigeria? What would we call our own?. Selling of assets is like bringing the country more backward. If we sell the assets to finance this year’s budget what would we sell next year?"
He advised the federal government to look beyond its party and assemble economists, financial experts, that would assist the President in his drive to bring the nation out of the present economic quagmire.
