The immediate past Secretary to Katsina State Government, Dr. Mustapha Muhammad Inuwa has said that unless drastic measures to address the prevalent insecurity and hunger in the country are taken before the 2023 general elections, the ruling All Progressives Congress APC will suffer worse defeat than the Peoples Democratic Party experienced in 2015.
According to Inuwa, Nigerians, particularly from the Northwest are unhappy with the APC ruling party for the past seven years for failing to meet, in the least, the high expectations of citizens who voted for them against all odds in 2015.
The former SSG who disclosed this in an exclusive interview with Vanguard on Wednesday said the situation is quite unfortunate with cost of living on a steady increase and sources of income diminishing daily. He noted that the situation has made it more difficult for people to fend for themselves and their family.
Inuwa said: “I interact with people on a daily basis in my house and in my office. Honestly, people are not happy with APC as a party and government both at state and national level. This is the truth.
I was past Chairman of the APC. I served as secretary to the governor (Aminu Masari) for over seven years. So naturally, I should want APC to succeed but the truth is, it is unfortunate really.
“When APC came in as a government, there were a lot of expectations by the people. In fact, I would say unrealistic expectations. Many people believed that with PDP out and APC in, all problems were considered solved but unfortunately APC as a government experienced a lot of challenges. Some internal, some global, especially issues to do with revenue. We relied largely on what we generated from the sales of oil and the price kept coming down.
“The issue of insecurity also persist especially in Northwest, North Central and to some extent, southern parts of the country. These affected personal commercial activities of our people.
“So honestly, APC was not fortunate. A lot of things turned out contrarily to what people expected. So, people are not happy.
“The life now, almost everything increases by three to four folds when you come to cost of living. Take for instance, the cost of a bag of rice, when we came on board, I think the 50kg bag was sold for about N8,000 per bag but now it is being sold at N33,000 in this area and at about N40,000 in Abuja axis. So, this is the same in almost every aspect.
“The sources of income have also gone down and people are not even getting money to buy things any more. It is one thing for cost of things to be high and people can afford it and it is another thing when things are high and unaffordable. So many people honestly live without food; they can’t take their children to school and can’t attend to their health challenges.
“All our commitments have become in many cases impossible to meet and the issue is even worst especially in this part of the country. In Katsina and other states in the northwest people have lost hope in the government and the security agencies to tackle the situation.
“So, honestly, people are not happy and unless of course something radical, something serious happens especially to do with this issue of insecurity, high cost of living from now till election, it will be extremely difficult for for APC to win.”