In his one-year assessment of the Tinubu administration, former Vice President Alhaji Atiku Abubakar stated that Nigeria was not working, criticizing the government’s economic policies as a series of agonizing trial and error runs.
In a statement, Atiku, the 2023 presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said, “On May 29, 2023, President Bola Tinubu raised the hopes of Nigerians with his pledge to ‘remodel our economy to bring about growth and development through job creation, food security, and an end to extreme poverty.’ Since then, Tinubu has also spoken about growing the economy at double-digit rates to $1 trillion in six years, ending misery, and bringing immediate relief to Nigeria’s cost-of-living crisis. Nigerians must have breathed a sigh of relief after their experience with ex-President Buhari’s eight years of economic misadventure.”
Atiku argued that Tinubu laid out no plans for the “remodeling” of the economy but soon embarked on a series of policies to achieve it. He highlighted that in May 2023, Tinubu eliminated petrol subsidies, and a month later, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) implemented a new foreign exchange policy that unified the multiple official FX windows into a single official market. “More policies followed in rapid succession: the tightening of monetary policy to reduce Naira liquidity, a hike in monetary policy rates, the introduction of cost-reflective electricity tariffs, and a cybersecurity tax.”
According to Atiku, “Predictably, 12 months on, Tinubu’s pledge of growing the economy and ending misery remains unfulfilled. His actions or inactions have significantly worsened Nigeria’s macroeconomic stability. Nigeria remains a struggling economy and is more fragile today than it was a year ago. Indeed, all the economic ills—joblessness, poverty, and misery—that defined the Buhari-led administration have only exacerbated. Africa’s leading economy has slipped to the 4th position, lagging behind Algeria, Egypt, and South Africa. Citizens’ hopes have been dashed (and not renewed contrary to the propaganda of the administration) as Nigeria’s economic woes have multiplied.”
Atiku wondered how Nigerians got to the current agonizing state and answered the question by pointing to his previous statements on the economy. He said, “In my press statement on the state of our economy earlier this year, I expressed my concerns about the downside risks of unleashing reforms without sequencing; without any ideas on how to implement them; and without any regards to their potential and real devastating consequences. Implementing policies without proper planning and a clear destination is nothing other than trial-and-error economics. My concerns have not diminished.”
He focused on four areas to underscore the downside risks associated with Tinubu’s reform measures and their dire consequences on Nigeria’s medium to long-term growth and development. “First, President Tinubu’s policies do not create prosperity. Instead, they pauperize the poor and bankrupt the rich. They spare no one. Nigerian citizens, the majority of whom are poor, are going through the worst cost-of-living crisis since the infamous structural adjustment programme of the 1980s. The annual inflation rate at 33.69 percent is the highest in nearly three decades. Food prices are unbearably higher than what ordinary citizens can afford as food inflation soared to 40.53 percent in April, the highest in more than 15 years. Nigerian citizens have to pay 114 percent more for a bag of rice, 107 percent more for a bag of flour, and 150 percent more in transport fares relative to May 2023. Today, in some locations, motorists are paying 305 percent more for a litre of fuel. Yet, on a minimum wage of the equivalent of US$23 per month, Nigerian workers are among the lowest wage earners in the world. Tinubu had the ‘courage’ to remove subsidy on PMS and impose additional taxes on his people but lacks the compassion to raise the minimum wage or implement a social investment programme that would reduce the levels of vulnerability and deprivation of workers and their families.”
Atiku said, “It is clear from the foregoing that President Tinubu has an exaggerated understanding of the efficacy of his policies and was not ready for the potential fallouts. Tinubu and his team are not exactly sure of where the reform process is and what the next steps are. Has Nigeria reinstated fuel subsidy? Is the Naira on a free or managed float? These trial-and-error policies raise questions about the readiness of the administration and their capacity to restore the economy to a path of sustainable growth.” He warned Tinubu against further pauperizing the poor by introducing new taxes or increasing tax rates.
Atiku added, “I have always been a reform advocate. The Nigerian economy certainly requires a large dose of reform measures to accelerate its transformation after many years of lacklustre growth. The difference is that I understand the appropriate reforms to undertake and what steps to take per time to mitigate their negative impact. In my Policy Document, I had anticipated that the withdrawal of subsidy and unification of exchange rates could, in the absence of fundamental interventions, impact negatively on micro and small enterprises in the informal sector and on the medium to large enterprises in the formal sector.”
