By Sunday Ani
The Social Democratic Party (SDP) presidential candidate in the 2023 elections, Prince Adewole Adebayo, has faulted the call for President Bola Tinubu to adopt the Argentina’s economic model to address the economic hardship currently facing Nigeria.
Recall that the former Vice President Atiku Abubakar had, recently, advised President Tinubu to borrow Argentina’s economic model to tackle the current economic crisis, which has negatively disrupted the economic life of Nigerians, throwing the people into hunger, abject poverty, misery and want.
Adebayo, in a statement, said it was wrong for Atiku to have compared Nigeria’s situation with that of Argentina, insisting that the economic hardship in Argentina is worse than Nigeria’s situation.
He said: “I can say Vice President Atiku Abubakar may be well-intentioned but he is misinformed. It is an error. If you look at the situation in Argentina, we may get to that position. I hope we don’t but we are travelling in that direction, just that they are ahead of us in terms of misery.
“They have one month of 512 percent inflation. I don’t know if economists can understand the temperature of 512 percent. They have lost virtually all their wealth. The person there now is from the Austrian school of thought.
“The Argentines are complaining every day as they have had the worst economic performance since 1980. I am not saying we should not criticise the non-performing government of President Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), but you do not say that somebody complaining of too much sun should be put in the oven; that’s not the way to solve the problem.
“These policies are not working, and unfortunately, Nigerians have voted for the policies. We voted for the policies either because we didn’t pay attention or we didn’t understand the implications of the policies.
“When you decided to vote for a government that said it would remove subsidies from day one, which was what President Tinubu, Atiku and Obi said, what do you expect? We didn’t listen to them; people thought they have experience, and maybe, they are more realistic than us.
“So, they voted that way. Any of them that formed the government and adopted any of these policies will have at the minimum, what we are experiencing now or even worse. These policies are not good, not because of the parties announcing them, but because structurally they are not suitable for us.”
Adebayo, however, noted that the subsidy removal was not bad in its entirety as it has made some great achievements expected by the executioners.
On that he said: “Of course, they come with some benefits, and you can see the benefits. More income to the government, for example, because they are not subsidising any more. More income from the foreign exchange differentials because they are not defending the Naira in the old way anymore.
“You also have the benefit of goods becoming cheaper, that is why people are saying they are exporting goods from Nigeria to Niger, and neighbouring countries because with lower currency, our goods and any other thing we produce become cheaper. Those are the advertised benefits, but we are not structurally prepared for them.”