Tinubu administration has worsened Nigerians’ living condition –Adebayo

By Sunday Ani

Presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the 2023 presidential election, Prince Adewole Adebayo, has blamed President Bola Tinubu’s government for worsening the living condition of Nigerians from where former President Muhammadu Buhari left off. He noted that inflation as well as unemployment and poverty index have all worsened since Tinubu ascended the presidency.

In this interview, he spoke on a wide range of issues, including the performance of the 2024 budget, prospects of 2025, and Nigeria’s expectations this year, among others.

What are your expectations for Nigeria as a citizen?

My expectations as a citizen are that the democracy we have will continue, and that it will give us an opportunity to ventilate our ideas. I also expect that the government of the day will recognise the extraordinary cooperation that Nigerians have given to the Tinubu administration. The government should now turn a new leaf and try to do something immediately to relieve the excruciating pain that people are going through. The government must realise that it does not have eternal life.

The government is approaching its midterm, and anything it wants to do for Nigerians has already consumed almost half of its time. This year, they must address insecurity. They must also address poverty, price fluctuation, and unemployment.  People who are desperately poor should have the ability to take care of themselves if given the opportunity to earn a living by working. The infrastructure that the government is supposed to build to aid productivity must be built, and the political class should think less of themselves and more of the people. The amount of money in the budget for maintaining people in high places must be reviewed downward, and these resources should be diverted appropriately in line with Chapter 2 of the Constitution, which is talking about the welfare of the people.

We should also invest in agriculture to make food cheaper for the people. The major challenge facing Nigerians right now, apart from insecurity, is hunger, which arises from inflation and the high prices of goods and services, especially food.

It’s not a case of people not knowing how to manage; there’s no more room for Nigerians to stretch their tiny budgets and salaries. The government must address that.

The government must also address the cost of electricity, other services, education, and health care. If the government can do these, then, we can hope that the next government will do far better. Right now, their budget is called a budget of restoration, so what they are doing is trying to restore, and at least, give people back a bit of the comfort they once enjoyed but lost due to the government’s fiscal and monetary policies.

How would you appraise the Tinubu government’s performance so far?

It will be poor attempts, and missed opportunities. And if I’m to tell them, there’s a lot of room for improvement.

When you say poor, what are you implying? If you are to grade it, 100 percent being the highest mark and zero being the lowest, how would you grade this government?

Well, 20 percent, or maybe 22 percent. So, if you have a student who scored 22 percent, you know, that’s it. To be fair to them, 22 percent, because in some areas they made attempts, while in others, they just threw away the opportunities. That’s how I measure it; by how much of the opportunities for growth and development they have taken. They’ve taken less than 22 percent.

It was even noticed that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, when the President addressed the joint session of the National Assembly, remarked that the 2024 budget had not been fully implemented. You will also see that the 2024 budget has now been extended by the National Assembly to almost the middle of this year. So, they haven’t taken opportunities. This is not about a personal measurement; it’s an objective metric of how far they have dealt with the issues. You will see the implications in areas such as employment generation; they haven’t even reduced unemployment by 22 percent.

If you look at inflation, they’ve worsened it. If you look at the poverty index, they’ve worsened it. So, the measurement is not just a political one, it’s a measurement based on data coming from within their own government.

Okay, let’s take it one step at a time. Are you saying he is sincere and has good intentions, but his approach is wrong? Is that correct?

There are three errors. The first error is that he wanted to do fiscal management, which is necessary in government. He wanted to do fiscal reform by saying, ‘I don’t like the idea that the government is spending so much money on certain things like subsidies, petroleum subsidies, life funding, and trying to defend the Naira by throwing money at it.’ That was causing a significant deficit in government financing, which in turn, created a monetary problem. So, what did he do? He removed the subsidy in a way that caused factor costs to rise, inflation to spiral, and further problems for the Central Bank in managing inflation and foreign exchange. At the same time, he is still running a deficit anyway.

So, you see the problem; the reform caused ripples in the larger economy, but the original issue he wanted to solve remains unresolved. All the money saved in the name of subsidy removal has disappeared. He is still borrowing more. The money diverted from subsidies has not increased employment in the economy. There’s no evidence to say that since they came into office, employment numbers have improved.

That’s why I said the approach he took is wrong. If you examine the system he wants to run, a neoliberal system, which he has the right to pursue because it’s what he campaigned on, you find out that the problem lies on how he has set up his economic team. There’s no sign they are proactive.They are only reacting to the consequences of earlier actions, always defending and perpetually behind. The economic team is not sharp enough.

Even if he chooses not to go outside his party to find people for the economic team, the APC has enough talent within its ranks. He hasn’t even utilised the best people within the party. In a few cases where he got the appointments right, you can see the difference.

Here’s an example that proves the excuse that what he met on the ground is not valid. Take Wike for instance. He doesn’t go around saying, Oh, I met the FCT with no streetlights, bad roads and all that. He goes straight to work, and you can see the results.

Look at the Minister of Interior. He’s not lamenting about millions of passport backlogs or other inherited challenges. He’s addressing them.

But every time you see President Tinubu on television, where is he? He’s at the FCT opening one road or at the Ministry of Interior unveiling some technological system.

There’s a lot of money in the education sector; a lot of money that could have been used to transform universities, create employment, and expand faculties. But they don’t do any of those things.

That’s why I’m saying that even though I understand Mr President’s vision, I don’t agree with it. What he is trying to do is this: I will soften the Nigerian economy, get Nigerian youth to endure a bit of suffering, and then foreign investments will come in through foreign direct investment. But, none of that has happened. And the reason it hasn’t happened is because the environment is not macro-economically stable enough. Foreign investors are watching how local investors are reacting.

I have money in my pocket, and I’m watching President Tinubu’s budget. I haven’t seen anything in this year’s budget that suggests I should bring out that little money in my pocket and risk it in the economy. Therefore, my partner in China, Indonesia, or the USA will also be more skeptical.

What I want us to understand is that they should stop talking about what they met on the ground. Apart from the fact that their party has been in power for nine years, even though I don’t want to go into politics, they should stop using that excuse. What they met on the ground is what they used to campaign to get into power. They knew what they would meet, so there’s no excuse.

But realistically, if you had become President in 2023, did you imagine that this was the quantum of challenges you would have met?

I was expecting worse. If you look at former President Muhammadu Buhari’s years in office, they were years of suspense, where the country went into a coma and occasionally came out to do something. This may have been because the president was ill at some point, or perhaps because both he and his VP appeared to share the same policies. Whenever the president travelled, something else would happen.

In the end, they had a mismanaged Central Bank that allowed them to mismanage their budget and borrow unnecessarily. They also mismanaged the currency and everything else. So, I knew that was the situation.

But, when you come in, you do not worsen the case. If you meet a patient in the hospital with very high blood pressure, the first thing you don’t do is give them salty food that will worsen it. You need to stop the bleeding.

You have to raise all the indices necessary to start normalisation. The problem, if I were to blame President Tinubu, is that he did not stabilise the economy. When he came in, his job was to stabilise the economy, just like stabilising a patient in the hospital. Then you start treatment.

Now, he wants to do this treatment. I’ve seen some of the speeches he’s made here and there. He now wants to stabilise, but he already applied the wrong medicines.

So, the patient is now in a very terrible state. If he can focus and have his own programme, not just flying to Dubai today, Abu Dhabi tomorrow, and so on, he would need a coordinated economic plan. He should start by ensuring that the 2025 budget, which I think is poorly written and poorly articulated, is implemented properly.

In fact, he should take a step back, finish the 2024 budget strongly, even though they mismanaged it, and then begin the 2025 budget with a clear plan to pin things down and create stability.

For example, if they can keep the Naira from fluctuating for 120 days, I would know they are serious. Just don’t let it fluctuate for 120 days.

It seems they weren’t very ambitious with their projections for the naira-to-dollar rate, pegging it at 1,500 in the 2025 budget. Do you see this as a lack of ambition or a belief that things could improve beyond the current state?

When I look at that, I started thinking like a Scotsman. I would give them the Scottish double entry, meaning that if they manage it well, they can balance the middle. Do you know why? If the rates are unrealistically low, as some people believe, it means that in managing the financial budget, they will have to spend more Naira to meet the numbers.

On the other hand, if they increase the sale of crude oil and other foreign receipts, they will have additional money. For example, there could be an excess crude account for the first time. If they manage solid minerals well, they could even create an excess solid minerals account. They’ll have these arbitrage excesses. For instance, they might project earning $150 million from selling one million barrels of crude oil, but end up earning $160 million instead. These little things could even help out and finance the budget.

But, the key issue is that when you implement a budget, it must have a real impact on the streets. Pay your debts on time because they still have many unpaid debts. They still rely on treasury bills, which they use under court orders to slow down their administrative problems.

When I spoke with manufacturers and others, they mentioned the lag time, T plus X, when trying to buy foreign exchange. Sometimes, the X is more than one month, even up to two months. For example, you pay for forex on February 1, but don’t get it until April. They need to bridge that gap.

They also need to pay contractors on time. If I were the president, I’d tell my finance minister that anyone who does a contract for the government must be paid within 21 days. The implication of this is that it would restore the gilt-edged status of government contracts.

In the past, someone with a Federal Government’s contract could go to a bank, borrow money without collateral, and the bank would trust that the Federal Government would pay. But now, contractors go years without being paid. They need to fix that.

The government must address these behavioural issues within the business community. Once that’s balanced, they can focus on foreign investments. But first, they must handle the housekeeping required to make that happen.

Instead of focusing solely on foreign direct investment, shouldn’t the government prioritise energising local economies and working with state governments to set up industries that could start producing within 18 to 20 months?

It’s not only possible, it’s mandatory. However, the government isn’t thinking in those directions. For international investment, it takes about six years of stability to attract foreign direct investment. Foreign portfolio investors, on the other hand, may enter if they see opportunities for quick profit, such as undervalued stocks or favorable exchange rates.

To attract Foreign Direct Investment, President Tinubu’s government needs six years of stable fiscal, monetary, trade, and structural reforms. With only two years remaining, that’s a challenge.

In the Social Democratic Party (SDP), our plan was to ensure that the government revenue has no leakage, stabilise inflation to single digits, and create an environment where the Naira is as dependable as any foreign currency. This would encourage people to retain wealth in Naira, lower factor prices, generate jobs, and improve infrastructure to reduce costs for everyone.

However, the government’s current handling of the foreign exchange policy has led to a decrease in the value of the Naira, despite increasing the budget from N35 trillion to N47.9 trillion, which has led to a $28 billion shortfall.

Given the possibility of pushing the budget to about N50 trillion with constituency projects, while the previous budget was lower in figure, is the 2025 budget actually lower in value?

The budget is $5 billion lower, down from $33 billion last year to $28 billion. Despite borrowing, including N15 trillion for debt financing, they have managed better than the Buhari administration by avoiding excessive ways and means. While they have become more active in the bond market, borrowing in foreign exchange will still require future repayment.

There have been reports that Northern elites are meeting with some Southern leaders and making plans for the 2027 elections. Is it true?

Of course, there are plans. Our intention is to ensure they are stable, complete their four years, and then step aside. That’s the core of the conversation. The SDP’s approach is to have a national consensus on how to run the economy, security, growth, and development, not just a conspiracy focused on removing one person.

In the past, we’ve had situations where it was about forcing someone out, like with Jonathan. We don’t want that. What we want now is to have a consensus on how the government is performing and what needs to be done once it’s time for a change in leadership.

The most important role for the SDP is to present our manifesto to all those in politics who believe change is necessary. This change must be based on principles, manifestos, programmes, and plans, not personalities.