President Bola Tinubu since assumption of office has launched economic policies that have been seen by many Nigerians as tough and harsh, policies that has affected the poor masses in Nigeria negatively, while it seemed the capitalists and political class have continued to smile to the bank, the reverse is the case for the ordinary Nigerian.
President Tinubu’s free market policies are good and rewarding but policies adopted must be creatively adapted to domestic conditions of the country.
In the past weeks,naira has continued to make a down turn while dollar has been rising increasingly. This is as a result of Tinubu administration policy which unilaterally collapsed the multiple exchange rates on June 14. From N472.50 to $1 at the Investors and Exporters window pre-rate unification, and N763 at the parallel market, the naira has steadily depreciated, rising between N740 and N800 per $1.
Since the policy came to light, the economy and the cost of living has risen high.
By this singular action,the president has shown his preference for an unfettered free market economy but the adverse effect of this remains that minimum wage is N30,000 and many families are sinking deeper into abject poverty.
According to World Poverty Clock, (2023), 71 million people are living in extreme poverty in Nigeria and a total of 133 million people are classed as multidimensionally poor. This was further corroborated by National Bureau of Statistics.
One of the criticisms of this new regime is that President Tinubu didn’t have a robust and structured plan in place before he uttered the statement that led to the immediate removal of subsidy in his inaugural speech. This coupled with Naira and dollar increase and decrease respectively affected everything in the country.
Nigeria is a country that depends on more imports which makes the dollar a centre of attraction to whatever we do. The unification of dollar will definitely make everything rise and many believe Nigeria is not yet ready for it.
The bone of contention now is the removal of petrol subsidy, in addition to the Central Bank of Nigeria floating the naira.
As people continue to cry over split milk,the
economists, and the multilateral agencies are hailing the policies because it they predict that they are policies that will pay off in the long run but the issue is,how will the people survive in the short run.
The harsh realities today is that many families cannot afford 2 meals a day. It is that bad and the President has continued to give emergency funds to Governors to buy palliatives for the people. The question is, how will the governors share the pallative? To Whom? With what criteria? All these are the questions begging for answers. The people have lost total faith in Government from Federal to Local Government.
It is crystal clear that President Tinubu and his cabinet never made any short or long term plan to increase wages,create more jobs and opportunities by fixing electricity and security, before making life unbearable for the people with these economic policies.
With this, President Tinubu has lost the goodwill of many people who voted for him and those who first hailed him when he started hiring and firing at the first 2 weeks in office, but now that the ministers list is all out, many people believe that those who were there for him during the election were the minister appointees, that the list of ministers was based on political consideration instead of merit ,it is more like the same old story.
Last week, the naira plunged to N820/$ before appreciating slightly to N798.25/$ ,later,it rose to 915/$. Worse, petrol prices was about to shoot up N700 per litre and above before the Federal Government decided to re-introduce subsidy from the back. Why go back to Subsidy? Isn’t it going to be the same story?
In order to address the ever increasing dollar exchange rate, the CBN acting Governor announced the FX price verification in order to force the Bureau de change to give account of incoming and outgoing flows because it seems the BDCs are aiding the hoarding of dollar which is the reason for the rise in dollar to naira.
As the federal Government continues to deploy different tactics towards arresting the unfortunate economic situation many Nigerians find themselves in, a situation that arose as a result of lack of foresight and planning, may I remind President Tinubu that the people are suffering and his government shouldn’t be about the rich alone, lending credence to the popular statement “Let the poor breath”.
Written by Tosin Adesile