Posted by Ali chickens out, denies comments on
Barely 24 hours after his Olusegun Obasanjo, National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Colonel Amadu Ali, (retd) has denied the comments.
Ali had on Tuesday, during a fellowship investiture ceremony by the Economics Institute for him, lashed out at Obasanjo's economic policies especially the planned sale of unity schools and removal of government's subsidy on agricultural products.
Daily Sun gathered on Wednesday in Abuja that the former president was livid with anger over the PDP chairman's comments and ordered him to retract them.
Accordingly, the PDP on Wednesday issued a statement saying the PDP chairman was quoted out of context.
"The newspaper reports are totally out of context and are at variance with the submissions of Senator Ali. The National Chairman is firm on the implementation of PDP programmes and manifesto which the last PDP government headed by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo steadfastly implemented and received world acclaim," PDP national publicity secretary, John Odey said in the statement.
Odey said what the national chairman emphasized on "and was twisted to suit the mindset of some mischief makers is the need to preserve our national heritage which our unity schools represent. This position formed part of the resolutions of the PDP at the last policy retreat held between the 18th and 19th of May 2007."
Ali, according to the statement rather harped on the need to sustain subsidy on agriculture as a means of boasting productivity and creating employment for majority of Nigerians "who are predominantly small scale farmers."
"Subsidy on agriculture is also a major policy thrust of the developed nations of Europe and America. The European union and the united states government till today heavily subsidize agriculture by engaging in bulk buyback of products and restriction of production to avoid glut and waste. Generous tax incentives are also given to farmers," Odey said in the statement.
The statement which is a twist of Ali's free comments on Tuesday is however an indication that the PDP's chairman may have chosen to swallow his words. At the event, Ali had said:
"This is an age where we sell up everything including the family chamber. I don't encourage all the sales there. I don't see why Federal Government Colleges should be sold.
I don't also see why certain things that are of national security should be sold but we have not gone out selling everything yet, so may be at one point we must designate certain things for the purpose of national security or otherwise…
"All the talks of withdrawing subsidy from farming I am not for it. We can continue to subsidize our farming. The European Union subsidizes its farmers up till tomorrow."
In order to prevent the glut in the global market of a particular crop, they beg farmers to leave their land fallow and pay them millions of Euros just to leave the land fallow so that it won't discourage
farmers. They pay them the money to protect the market and protect the farmer and yet they come here and preach to us that we should remove subsidy.
"And that is why subsidy must be for the farmers, it doesn't make sense selling a tractor for over N1 million how many farmers can afford it. When I bought my tractor in those days it was N25, 000, that same tractor I am told is N1.2 million now. Not many people can afford that. So cooperative farming, subsidy is the only way for us to exist. This is part of our own economy that must be protected and be shielded.
"But they are busy telling us to operate open market economy, which one is open market? Open market when you produce everything, look all the iron rods that we are using, Germans started producing iron in all their factories as family business for over two hundred years, some
started three hundred years so what they are selling to us now are just the profit that generated from generations to generations.
"The economy of scale is also important. We don't have to do things in a large way. That is what the white man has pushed us into everything that we must be large.
"The Americans and the first world will always get their parameters wrong on Nigeria because
they do not have the correct inputs to produce the results that they are dishing out, so half the time they miss the road. We are in position to produce that inputs. I spend close to three hundred pounds every year contributing to the economic intelligence unit country report on Nigeria and they write it every year. They write for every country of the world but the Nigeria
country had always been on the slope. Half of what they are writing… half of them too they have missed the road. Their calculations are totally out of the way because they are depending on small reports of different people who come and go."