The Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, has said that Nigerians should thank President Muhammadu Buhari after thanking God over the economy of Nigeria that did not crash.

Amaechi claimed that the economy of Nigeria would have crashed if not for President Buhari.

Starnews Nigeria reports that Amaechi made this claim while responding to question during an exclusive interview with the Guardian Newspaper published on February 6, 2022.

He was asked: Since you don’t want to be specific about your interest towards the 2023 Presidency, what kind of a leader would you want to succeed Buhari?

He responded: “For me, I just think that anybody who is coming, whether from PDP or APC, should continue from where President Buhari stops. What is making people criticise Buhari is because he is trying to move the economy from rent culture economy where you come to my office and when you are leaving, I give you N50, 000. You will not ask me where I got it from. So, you go home and distribute the money, the money is used. But he said, “Let us provide the necessary things we can refer to as factors of production – there is infrastructure that will enable you to facilitate development. Let us assume that you work in Abuja and reside in Agbor, if you take a train to Abuja, you can take the 6 am train and by 8 am, you are in Abuja. You don’t need to live in Abuja to be able to plan your trade in Abuja. What we have done is that we have reduced the cost of your doing business in Abuja by providing you with the facility that will take you away from the house that you live in Agbor to come to Abuja. If we are not careful, Abuja will explode. People can now live in Kaduna and work in Abuja. There is a train at 4 and 6 pm respectively. We are taking it forward from Kaduna to Kano. By the time we finish the Kaduna/Kano railway, people can also reside in Kano and come to work in Abuja. So, what he is doing is what you can refer to as creating the conducive atmosphere for business to thrive.”

“We are just moving from the rent culture economy where you get cash. Rather than build infrastructure, we give you cash then and you spend the cash. But the money is finishing, that is the reason you see poverty and insecurity. Nobody was born a bandit, a thief or Boko Haram. What causes people to steal or become bandits is the economy, the environment. If the environment denies one the opportunity to go to school, you cannot be employed and you don’t have money to feed, what happens? You will start looking for big men to return the money stolen from the government. So, that is why big men are not comfortable to drive anywhere because they are afraid of the poor people they denied their rights to exist.”

“If the next President comes and does not continue from there, and goes back to the rent culture, then the economy will collapse again. After thanking God, we should thank Buhari because the economy would have crashed on us. Some governors are giving out money meant for building schools and roads and the society is not asking. Nigerian elites are denying the masses the right to exist and the power to remove them does not rest in the police or army. It rests squarely on you.”