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National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Professor Nentawe Yilwatda, has urged Nigerians to stop putting blames of poor development at the subnational levels on the central government but take interest in what governors and local government chairmen do with their monthly allocations. The APC chairman made the declaration on Monday in Abuja while speaking at the unveiling of a book, “Vicious Red Circle”, authored by Ambassador Alex Ugochukwu Oriaku. The APC chairman noted that what the governors and council chairmen receive have tripled unlike under previous administrations, submitting that it should translate into development at the subnationals. He said: “No governor in Nigeria knows that two years ago, there was a share of about 400 billion Naira per month. But today, the last share they did was 2.2 trillion Naira. No governor in Nigeria today collects less than three times, up to four times what they used to collect before. None. “So they can do more for their people. No governor collects lower than three times. None. They are focusing now on bigger projects. And to me, this is a turnaround that we need in governors. “I would say, talk to your governors. Talk to your Local Government Chairmen. Let them do more.” While giving indices that the current administration was getting economic policies right, the APC Chairman said it is his dream that Nigeria move forward under his party. “It’s my dream that I have a party that is driving Nigeria in the right direction. To give Nigeria not just optics alone, but a reality that Nigeria is better and open. “We can turn around the corner. And as a political party, the APC, we like doing the unthinkable. We make changes that look unreasonable to the eye of people, but deep within, and seated in our hearts, are things that we can make changes that can improve the life of our people. That’s at the centre of our hearts. And that’s why we’re working as citizens with the economy, and everybody knows the numbers are changing. “The World Bank, the IMF, said we can’t grow up to 3% GDP per annum. We are doing 4.23% now. It was predicted that by now, we can’t do more than 1 million barrels per day. We are doing 1.7, 1.8 million barrels per day. And I can keep giving the numbers. But these numbers must reflect on the people.” President of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), Dr. Ike Neliaku, who reviewed the book described the as quite revealing as it exposed the contest of corrupt interplay of poverty and exploitation in the society. He also called on Nigerians to reject the culture of silence, adding that when people see evil and refuse to speak it is an endorsement of such practice. On why he wrote the book, the author of Vicious Red Circle, Amb. Alex Ugochukwu Oriaku, described human trafficking as a vicious, self-perpetuating cycle of exploitation, vulnerability, and silence. “It’s a circle that preys on the desperate, the vulnerable, the marginalized, and the unseen. And for far too long, we have allowed this circle to remain unbroken, operating in the shadows of our society, on the edges of our awareness. “I wrote it to build a bridge. A bridge of empathy between the abstract horror of a global crisis and the beating heart of a single, human story. This novel follows one life, one journey-a fictional story woven from countless real, harrowing truths.” ALSO READ TOP STORIES FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
