- Say Reforms Implemented By Tinubu’s Administration Are Ad Hoc, Hurriedly Put Together Without Proper Review
Two presidential candidates in the 2023 general election, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and his Social Democratic Party (SDP) counterpart, Adewole Adebayo have laid the blame of the economic hardship in Nigeria on President Bola Ahmed.
Atiku, the former Vice President of Nigeria disclosed this in his official X account on Sunday, where he called on Tinubu to learn from Argentina’s President Javier Milei how to regain investors’ confidence in a short time despite inheriting a disoriented economy.
“Nigeria is where we are today simply because of what Tinubu has done or did not do. His shifting the blame on the opposition and, even ridiculously, his predecessor is needless and myopic. Market forces don’t play politics. They respond to your actions and inactions,” Atiku posted.
He continued: “The examples set by President Milei are the requirement of leadership in a time when the economy has begun to fail the people’s expectations.
“The reforms implemented by the Tinubu administration are ad hoc and hurriedly put together without proper review. Ours is unlike Argentina’s Milei, who is sequencing his reforms.
“President Milei anticipates the after-reform shocks and admits that things will be tough for the people. But he is fully prepared for the aftershocks and has in place mitigating pills.
“He walks the talk. He sacrifices himself by giving up the perks of office. It is not business as usual for the presidency while the people are called upon to make sacrifices.
“Argentina runs a lean government by reducing the number of ministries, privatising nearly 40 state-owned enterprises, and reducing wasteful spending.
“Conversely, Tinubu in Nigeria increased the number of ministers and ministries and is spending enormous resources renovating houses for himself, his deputy, and the first lady.
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“That is nothing short of Nero playing fiddle while Rome is on fire! Worse still, Tinubu has refused to roll up his sleeves and do the work that he signed up for. Instead, he and his team are preoccupied with behaving like Napoleon and Squealer, characters in the satire book Animal Farm, who made it a state policy to scapegoat Snowball (the opposition) for their failures arising from their ill-advised policies.
“I am attracted to the reforms in Argentina because Javier Milei’s stabilization plan bears a similar emblem to my Recover Nigeria Plan.
“It is a plan that I am more than willing to disclose details of its workings with the current government to take Nigeria out of the hunger and anger that we find ourselves in.
“The plan includes strategic steps to recover the economy and make it stronger, dynamic, resilient, and competitive.
“Unless, and until there are clear-cut policies and pathways to economic rejuvenation predicated on a leadership-led sacrifice, there will be discontentment, especially among the youths, which may find expression in protests and for which it will be silly to continue to blame the opposition for,” Atiku stated.
Similarly, Adebayo, who was a guest on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, said the method of the Tinubu government was not correct. “He (Tinubu) has the right team but what he wants to do is not correct,” he said.
According to the former SDP flag bearer, if he were to be Nigeria’s President, he wouldn’t remove petrol subsidy from day one as President but would have approached the National Assembly to amend the 2023 Appropriation Act to allow subsidy for a while.
“These policies are not good, not because of the party that is announcing them but because they are not suitable to us,” he insisted.
Adebayo disagreed with Tinubu’s methodology but agreed that any of the presidential candidates in the last poll who adopted the policies of the incumbent would have gotten the same results evident in the country at the moment.
“It doesn’t matter whom you put there, this will be the outcome once you adopt these policies,” he said, while identifying the three major issues as cost of governance, the issue of subsidies and forex.
According to him, the reforms of the incumbent come with some benefits such as more income to the government and more income to the foreign exchange but the country was “not structurally prepared for the advertised benefits”
He also postulated that the gains of the policies were less to the pains, noting that the Tinubu government should be “less arrogant” to do the right thing to provide succor for suffering Nigerians.
