WELCOME BACK SPEECH BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE, FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA, HIS EXCELLENCY, SENATOR (DR) ABUBAKAR BUKOLA SARAK

WELCOME BACK SPEECH BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE, FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA, HIS EXCELLENCY, SENATOR (DR) ABUBAKAR BUKOLA SARAKI (CON) TO SENATORS OF THE 8TH SENATE ON RESUMPTION FROM A SENATE ANNUAL RECESS ON TUESDAY, 20 SEPTEMBER, 2016.
Protocol:
Distinguished colleagues, I am greatly pleased to welcome you back to the hallowed Chamber of the Senate after our annual recess. To our Muslim colleagues, I wish you all Eid Mubarak.
I hope that the recess has afforded us the opportunity to reconnect with our constituencies and to reflect on the great task that lies ahead of us.
During this years Sallah as it is my tradition, I had close interaction with a cross section of my people in Kwara Central including, the aged, youths, market women, and leaders of thought. I believe many of you did the same. I recall unforgettably, how one of the women came straight to me with a look of utter desperation and all she could mutter out was, please our Senator, do what you can to put an end to this suffering, it is becoming unbearable. I don’t know what your experience was, but if your experience mirrored mine, then the challenge before us could not have been made clearer. The words of this woman reverberated across the hall with such unison that it was impossible to under estimate the desperation in the land. In the last couple of days, I have interacted with many of you here, and it has become even clearer to me that the situation is virtually the same all across the country.
During my interaction which I described above, I remember trying to explain to my people that this kind of thing does not happen overnight; that the seeds for the condition that we suffer from today must have been planted by past administrations that refused to do what was necessary. However, I soon realized that my people are not so interested in how we got here or who to blame for our current situation. They only wanted to know that government has plans to get them out of this current predicament. To them, the only explanation that makes sense at the moment is that which puts food on the table, reduces price of rice, garri, salt, sugar, meat and saves jobs.
Yes, the collapse in oil prices from over $100 per barrel to about $48 recently meant the Nigerian economy would experience serious challenges. However, low sovereign savings have compounded our situation with FX reserves having declined from over $65bn in 2007 to about $30bn by 2015. The implications of this is that we must do something drastic and quick to restore confidence back into the economy and get people investing and spending again if we are to end the despair in the land.
It is no longer news, that the National Bureau of Statistics confirmed that the Nigerian economy has drifted into recession. With GDP growth in the second quarter of 2016 at -2.06% following a decline of 0.36% in the first quarter, the Nigerian economy has had two consecutive quarters of economic contraction.
It is clear to me that when people are desperately hungry, what they need is leadership with a clear vision; leadership whose daily actions reflects the very urgency of the people’s condition. Therefore, our response to the current challenge must be dictated by the urgency of the hardship that the people suffer on a daily basis. I say this to urge us that we must have an urgent debate on the way forward. But in having this debate we must resist the temptation of drowning the debate with apportioning blames that will neither bring solutions to the problem or reduce the cost of rice, maize or oil in the market. Rather this debate must be solution driven, it must be people oriented and less political.
Distinguished colleagues, the simple question for our debate must be; how do we tame the widespread hunger in the land? How do we save our businesses from collapse? How do we save jobs for the majority and create even a lot more? Only a few months ago, Naira was exchanging to the dollar at 200; today it is approaching 500. How do we