President Muhammadu Buhari and governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose at different fora on Friday lamented the prevailing worsening economic crisis the nation is experience.
Buhari who spoke at an interactive session with journalists, in New Delhi on Friday, noted that “the government is broke”.
“There used to be 42 ministers but we will be lucky if we can have half of that now, others may not be substantive ministers but they will sit in the cabinet because that is what the constitution says and we cannot work outside the constitution.
“Where is the money? Nigeria cannot pay salaries. The federal government had to assist 27 out of the 36 states to pay salaries… The country was materially vandalized and morally sucked.”
Meanwhile Fayose while speaking at the 22nd Convocation of the College of Education, Ikere Ekiti, warned that unless drastic action is taken, the economy might collapse in the next three months.
Fayose, who is the Visitor to the College, lamented the deplorable state of the nation’s economy, noting that rather than address it, the All Progressives Congress- led Federal Government has been employing propaganda to deal with the issue.
He said: “This is the time for the Federal Government to come out and tell Nigerians about the state of the economy rather than employ propaganda.
“I foresee serious trouble ahead because in the next three months, the economy may collapse. Oil now sells in the region of $40 per barrel.
Things have never been bad like this. When I returned from the Holy Land yesterday (Wednesday), I was told that Ekiti got N1.4bn whereas my wage bill per month is N2.6bn.”
Governor Fayose, however decried that Ekiti people don’t pay tax, wondering how government could work for the people with depleting allocation from the centre.