TINUBU’S FAILED ECONOMIC REFORMS: THE WAY OUT

ONWUASOANYA FCC JONES

Nigerians gave President Tinubu the benefit of doubt, when, on his first day in office, he announced sweeping policies that threw Nigerians into unprecedented hardship, without any programme in place to reduce the adverse effect on the masses. The removal of subsidy on PMS expectedly pushed up the prices of all basic commodities and skyrocketed the cost of living. Yet, Nigerians, long-suffering and patriotic, bought into the over rehashed story about how these subsidies have been feeding an infinitesimal percentage of the population while majority of the populace are left starving. The President and his team assured us that in a few months, we would start reaping the benefits of those reforms. We believed him.

Nine months down the line, instead of things improving, they have continued to get worst and it is getting to a point where many families are not able to feed their children and cater to their basic needs. Everything is looking dreary and dangerous, and one is hardly inspired to hope that the President and his team have any idea about how to get us out of the situation, soonest.

Apparently, the President is desperate to turn the situation around for the better, but it appears, he is lost in the stream already and his team seems to have come to their wit’s end. The recent resort of sending Seyi, his son to come and plead with Nigerians to “endure the hard times” shows how frustrated the President might be with the failure of his policies, but instead of assuaging the youths, which I believe must have been the thinking of those who advised Seyi to speak to the media at this time, it rather infuriated them more, because majority of the youths believe that Seyi, like his father does not really know how horrible the situation is.

Instead of running around the circle and experimenting with the fate of this nation, I will advise that the President takes the following steps;

1. REVERSE HIS ECONOMIC POLICY: As laudable as the idea of removing subsidy and unifying exchange rate is, the undeniable fact is that they are not well thought out, yet. The best economic idea is that which reduces the sufferings of the ordinary people, not the one that puts the people through avoidable hardship. The President should therefore revert to status quo and take his time to articulate an action plan that would minimise the inconveniences of such policies on the ordinary masses, before going ahead with them.

By removing subsidy and aiming to unify exchange rate without having put measures in place to curtail its adverse effect on the masses, the President put himself forward as a quack surgeon who would carry out a surgery without anaesthetics.

2. PROSECUTE SUBSIDY THIEVES AND FOREX MANIPULATORS: It should be commonsense that you do not pretend to have secured a storehouse while the known burglars have spare keys to access the same storehouse. By allowing the alleged subsidy thieves and forex manipulators to keep their loot and maintain their influence on the Nigerian economic and political ecosystem, Tinubu had deliberately set ordinary Nigerians up to suffer for what they know nothing about. With the massive war chaste at the disposal of this cabal, they would not only try to continue in their backhand deals, but will also throw in a lot of resources into trying to frustrate the reforms that might be aimed at shutting down their cash tap.

3. CHANGE HIS ECONOMIC TEAM: Nine months is enough for any efficient team to show their efficiency in tackling our economic woes. But, if there is any competence that has been displayed by the current economic team empanelled by Tinubu, it is the competence in ruination. They have ruined whatever was left of the carcass called Nigerian economy. The possession of many degree certificates and awards has never been a good criteria for knowing efficient economists. If it were, the world’s wealthiest people would have been professors and Nobel laureates in economics, but they aren’t. Economics is a practical thing. It’s success or failure has to be felt by the people and not on the pages of books or screens of televisions. Tinubu should look outside his cult of loyalists and even outside his political Party to conscript people to drive the Nigerian economy out of this distress.

4. INVEST MASSIVELY IN PRODUCTION: Government must not be directly involved in producing anything, but government can encourage that. From China to Thailand, to India and many other countries of the world, there are models of the huge economic benefits of encouraging citizens to get into production. Tinubu’s idea of floating the Naira was hinged on nothing, hence the free fall of the Naira. This will not change, as long as Nigeria is not producing and exporting anything. The Naira cannot be strong on its own, but as a result of how much of it is useful in the international market. In a situation where the Naira is worth less than a tissue paper in the international market, the only option any government that really means well for the people is left with is to continue to defend the Naira until it is able to get Naira valued products into the international market.

5. FIGHT CORRUPTION: The most effective economic policy is to fight corruption. Nothing destroys an economy more than corruption and as long as Tinubu continues to hobnob with corrupt individuals, any talk about economic reform is balderdash. Tinubu’s administration is notorious for accommodating some of the people with cases of corruption running into trillions of Naira. How will a cabinet populated by past governors, senators and all manner of people accused of graft succeed in reforming the economy? Even those who were caught by the Tinubu administration have mostly been left alone to continue their stealing or at most continue enjoying their loot. This cannot work.

6. PUT THE RIGHT INFRASTRUCTURE IN PLACE: If Tinubu meant well about reforming and reviving the Nigerian economy, the first thing he would have done before going ahead to pull out the key things that had made it possible for Nigerians to enjoy a little lease of life, was to sit down and study the situation, then fix the infrastructure that would make it easier for the economy to thrive. For instance, if the government had fixed our refineries and they are working perfectly, there wouldn’t be any need to announce the removal of subsidy, because with refineries that are working in full capacity, the need for subsidy would have been abolished automatically. We need actual liberalisation of the petroleum sector, so that people can easily trade in the sector without necessarily being members of particular cabals.

7. REDUCE COST OF RUNNING GOVERNMENT: We need to pay less lip service to the idea of cutting cost of governance and begin to actually implement them. It is ridiculous when the President urges ordinary Nigerians to endure the sufferings caused by his policies, yet the same Nigerians see people in government and their family members living large and cruising like nothing really happened. Leaders need to be sensitive to the plight of the people. We need to see the President’s convoy drastically cut down, we need to see governors using fewer cars and fewer aides, we need to see children of top politicians returning home from abroad to school in Nigerian schools. Without this happening, Nigerians would conclude that the President is deliberately punishing us for whatever reasons he feels good about.

MAY NIGERIA PREVAIL!