Preselect Bola Tinubu has made two impressive sound-bites which tended to give the impression he would be a people-friendly leader. In his maiden speech on Democracy Day on June 12, 2023, he told Nigerians: “I share your pains” with regard to the harsh economic experience occasioned by the commencement of implementation of the petrol subsidy removal.
He was also caught on a viral video saying: “Let the poor breathe. Don’t suffocate them”. We ask the President to walk his talk. For now, he is saying one thing while his government is walking a different (in fact, the opposite) road. The petrol subsidy removal one month ahead of the time scheduled and budgeted for it by the departed Muhammadu Buhari regime hit Nigerians very badly. The All Progressives Congress, APC, as a ruling party, has bungled subsidy removal, rendering it anti-people. It had eight good years to fix the refineries and encourage the establishment of several private refineries to make subsidy removal a virtual non-event. But Buhari, who made himself Petroleum Minister, after failing to do the needful, squandered about N10 trillion on petroleum subsidy and left the dirty job for his successor. Tinubu promptly transferred the burden to the masses without first putting cushioning measures in place. It is only now negotiating with organised Labour to avert the strike. We wait to see how these measures will also benefit the rest of the populace who do not earn salaries. To walk his talk, Tinubu must persuade the power companies to allow the people to adjust to the subsidy removal pains before imposing their proposed increase in electricity tariffs. We know they are also feeling the heat. But a way can be found to allow the public to cope. A situation whereby the people have no money to buy fuel for their vehicles and no electricity to power their homes and businesses will be severely choking. Unfortunately, it is also at this same juncture that the government has chosen to implement a 7.5 per cent charge on Value-Added Taxes, VATs, on several consumable items. Even the proposed Student Loan programme and increase in tuition fees in public universities will add more burden. The people are getting pushed to the wall. The Tinubu government must roll out palliative policies. Government should launch a massive agricultural programme that improves on the CBN’s rested Anchor Borrowers’ programme but on a much bigger scale, mandating the banks to advance credit to pro-qualified applicants. The criminals in our ungoverned spaces must be flushed out to enable our people massively embrace agriculture with full government support.
Most importantly, the hair-brained idea of increasing the salaries of political officeholders by over 100 per cent must be shelved until a satisfactory new National Minimum Wage is agreed and implemented. Let the people breathe.