Human right lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN),on Monday, said President Buhari was under pressure by some political forces in the All Progressives Congress
to hijack his economic policies and ensure they are under the control of a few cabals.
He spoke during the public presentation of a book entitled: “Economic diplomacy and Nigeria’s foreign policy”, written by the immediate chairman, Board of Tertiary Education Trust Fund and chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, Dr. Musa Babayo.
Falana who was obviously reacting to Buhari's recent state visit to the United States of America, where some Nigerian businessmen and industrialist were allegedly turned down from having audience with President, said these development may have accounted for why the President has not been forthcoming with his economic agenda two months after his inauguration.
He said the President has been inundated with numerous suggestions on how to handle the nation's cash cow,the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), especially on issues bothering on corruption against the agency,but noted that their argument clearly lacked merit.
He said, "The national planning have been abandoned for market forces by those who control our country, and what is going on now, even from the APC, there are people that are mounting pressure on President Buhari to continue to run the economy of Nigeria in the interest of a few people and in the personal minority interest of captains of industry without industry.
"But I think the President answered them last week; you know their campaign now is that "you must remove fuel subsidy, you must devalue the currency, you must privatize NNPC of all institutions" and the President said "I am not going to privatize NNPC, I will break it into two for effective performance," which I think is the best for our country".
He also slammed those accusing Buhari's administration of lacking clear focus and direction,saying the new government has activated a constitutional provision which would ensure that all cases of corruption emanating from the anti-graft agencies would be dispensed with in the law court within a maximum of six months time frame.
The human right lawyer said government has a duty to cut cost of governance by first pruning down the number of embassies in other countries.
"There's an area that we need to develop now that the government is trying to cut cost. We have too many embassies all over the world. I got to a country in Africa recently and discover that the country has a population of about 300,000 and we have an embassy there.
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