By Olasunkanmi Akoni

Lagos—Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State and Vice Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Professor Yemi Osinbajo at the weekend punctured the economic policies of the Federal Government, saying it lacks safety net for an economy on the brink of recession.

Babatunde Raji Fashola

This came as leaders of various students unions of the tertiary institutions in Lagos pledged their support for the Lagos APC governorship candidate, who are in one way or the other connected to the ivory tower and teaching profession even as they called for change at the centre.

The duo, who spoke at an interactive session with student union leaders of tertiary institutions, which took place at the Tafawa Balewa Square Hall, added that corruption mismanagement and lack of accountability were largely responsible for the country’s under-development.

Fashola described the austerity measures being proposed by the Federal Government as deceptive, adding that the official excuse it gave that because it was losing 400,000 barrels of crude oil per day, the people have to tighten their belts is not tenable.

He said, “Largely because of their inefficiency, they have now come to say tighten your belt as austerity has come. Stop losing 400,000 barrels first because 400,000 barrels even at 50 dollars would give you about 20 million Dollars per day. When you multiply that by 190, it would give you about N3.8 billion a day that is being lost.”

Fashola, who also faulted the recourse to an increase in Value Added Tax as part of the belt tightening regime stressed that; “Before you come back to the citizen to say tighten your belt you must do your job first.”