The General Overseer, Charismatic Renewal Ministries (CRM), Dr Cosmas Ilechukwu, on Sunday, advised President Bola Tinubu to urgently reconstitute his economic team with a view to tackling the current hardship.

Mr Ilechukwu, who is the convener of ‘The Change We Need Nigeria Initiative (TCWNNI), also urged the president to ensure that the fresh professional economists are given free hand to brainstorm on finding solutions to the current economic crisis.

He spoke in an interview with journalists shortly after the TCWNNI programme where prayers were offered to Nigeria and its leaders.

He stressed the reconstituted economic team and government agencies should be allowed to carry out their mandates without political interference.

“My advice to the government is that let the president constitute an economic team of professional economists and give them free hand to brainstorm on finding the solution to the Nigerian economic problem.

“Whatever they bring up as their way out, let the government be courageous to adopt its hook line and sinker without any political connotations and go out of their way to implement that.

“I believe that we have brains in this country who can think out and come up with solutions that will deliver us from our doldrums.

“But the only issue is that we always colour everything with politics and ethnicity.

“This time around, we have suffered enough that we will insist on having a purely professional team of economists who will 

show us the way out,” he said.

On the recent hike in fuel pump price, Mr Ilechukwu said there was no justification when Nigerians were already suffering because of some government policies.

 “Nobody likes the fuel price increases. I don’t like it because there was no need for that to be done.

“My question is, the excess money we are getting, where are we investing it?

“Rather than investing it, we are even borrowing more, plunging our country into deeper and higher debts.

“I don’t think increasing the fuel price will solve the problem; it will rather aid the inflation,” he said.

He, however, urged Nigerians to be patient and embrace righteousness with the belief that God has the capacity to deliver the country.

He equally urged the church to be active in politics and to insist on good stewardship of the nation’s commonwealth.

Robert Agbahia, chairman of the organising committee of TCWNNI and regional overseer of CRM, Middle Belt, said the annual event had been held consistently in the last 15 years featuring lectures and prayer for the nation.

“God has been answering our prayers and He will continue to answer our prayers for a better nation, a new nation with righteousness, peace and justice,” he said.

There was a panel discussion during the programme where the panellists highlighted issues of corruption, nepotism, and lack of effectiveness of anti-corruption agencies in the country as major drawbacks to the nation’s development.

(NAN)