BY: Ikenna Oluka
The Vice Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the February 23 presidential election, Mr. Peter Obi, has described as gratifying, the recent warning of All Progressives Congress, APC, leader, Bola Ahmad Tinubu, against the removal of Value Added Tax otherwise called VAT.
Obi said that Tinubu’s warning which makes economic sense given the situation in the country was at variance with that of his party and goes to underscore the uncoordinated campaign they dished out to Nigerians.
The VP candidate said in a statement from his media office on Sunday that the position of the PDP and the presidential candidate which was made loud and clear during the electioneering is that tax must be relaxed to act as incentive to investors.
Obi insisted that the right way to go to shape up the economy given the magnitude of unemployment in the country is to have an attractive economic policy that will be inviting to entrepreneurs and investors.
He stated that APC’s earlier stance of increasing tax, VAT inclusive shows the height of insensitivity of a government that careless about the plight of the populace.
Obi said that Tinubu’s warning is good but he should have been humble enough to credit to the opposition party instead of making it feel as if it has been the position of the party.
“It’s extremely unrealistic for anybody to think of growing the economy of this country, and creating jobs just by increasing tax, it’s too a simplistic approach”, he noted.
The former Anambra State Governor said that he hopes that Tinubu would go further also to advice his party to embrace restructuring as that is the only option left to move this country forward.
“Anybody thinking that this country will work without tinkering with the political and economic structure is deceiving himself because no nation grows on injustice”, he added.
Obi furtehr described as unfortunate the fact that Nigeria with all her potentials is among the three African countries according Pew Research Center Where 45% of the adult population are desiring to leave the country.