Ayodeji Ake
Presidential candidate of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), Donald Duke, has mentioned the disappearance of Nigeria’s center class mirrored the deepening financial disaster within the nation, warning that widespread poverty, unemployment and insecurity have been pushing the nation in direction of state failure.
Duke, who spoke in an interview, yesterday, mentioned many Nigerians who beforehand thought of themselves financially steady have been now struggling to fulfill their fundamental wants, leaving them susceptible to financial shocks and emergencies.
He argued that the nation’s financial difficulties had been compounded by shrinking companies, insufficient job alternatives and a quickly increasing inhabitants that the economic system may now not adequately assist.
“The so-called middle class does not really exist anymore. Many of those we call middle class are only surviving from day-to-day. Let there be one serious emergency and they crumble,” he mentioned.
The former Cross River State governor mentioned the widening hole between the rich and the poor was a sign that Nigeria’s economic system was failing to offer the circumstances vital for a good way of life.
“You have perhaps one per cent who are genuinely wealthy and then a huge number of people struggling around or below the poverty line,” he mentioned.
Duke mentioned the state of affairs had turn into a significant motivation for his resolution to contest the 2027 presidential election, arguing that Nigeria couldn’t afford to proceed on its current path for one more 4 years.
“I talk about the urgency of now because I don’t think we can go on like this for another four years,” he mentioned.
He defined that his resolution to hunt the presidency was pushed by the necessity to transfer past criticism of successive governments and supply options to the nation’s worsening financial and social challenges.
“You get to a point in your life where you say, ‘Either I walk away or I do something.’ There is no guarantee that you will win. But I don’t want to look back and say that all these things happened and I did nothing,” he mentioned.
