The presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, in the 2023 general elections, Prince Adewole Adebayo has warned Nigerians to avoid putting pressure on the government to meet up with International Monetary Fund, IMF, standards as that would worsen the economic woes of the country.
durng an interview with VOA NEWS, he examines Tinubu’s economic policies so far, its negative effects on Nigerians, Obasanjo’s comment on the situation of things in Nigeria and the government’s response, among other national governance issues. Excerpts!
Looking at the present condition of things in the country, ranging from economy to judiciary, transportation, agriculture and many more and given the fact that you wanted to preside over the affairs of this country when you contested the presidential election last year; what is your perspective on the situation of the country today?
I think they are predictably bad. They are where we said they would be. Luckily, they are not as bad as we feared, given the policy options adopted, the mentality and attitude to governance adopted by many of the political parties and contestants, one of whom is now our President and Commander-in-Chief.
So, there is that cavalier attitude where they will not discuss policies and just assert their entitlement because they have been in politics for a long time, and their friends are everywhere. They believe that when they come in, they will have access to patronage of power. Is it my religion or yours? Is it your tribe or mine? Is it my zone or your zone? Those things don’t impact the lives of the people and they don’t power the ship of state. But, those were the issues that were dominant during the election.
Even now, to get policy rich issues into the mainstream, you will get comments by former this and that. Even when they don’t have policy disagreement, they will still have what the late Fela Anikulapo used to call ‘Yabis night’ at the shrine in those days. What the Nigerian political class has turned the entire four years to is ‘Yabis years.’ They just come, say what you like, and whether it is consistent with what you have done all your life doesn’t matter. Just say anything; whatever cheap shot you can throw and at the end of the day, no policy is implemented.
Remember there are four pillars of governance that you can use in knowing if the military and security agencies are effective. When life and property are safe, governance is taking place even if the president doesn’t talk. If the civil servants are delivering on services and they are meeting their targets; if people have better electricity, better healthcare; if the rule of law is working through the judiciary; if the industry is working, and industry this time, is in two branches -professional like lawyers, nurses, and productive industry like manufacturing, agriculture, and extractive industry; if those ones are working, whether people like your face or not, the evidence will be clear that governance is taking place.
The government has also tried to put a number of policies in place but the manufacturing sector has kept complaining that the policies aren’t working for them. Consumers in the electricity sector are kicking against tariff as it is affecting them heavily and even the IMF is also kicking against the government policies; what are your thoughts?
The policies the manufacturers are quarrelling about are their own policies. They have the same policies. The manufacturing association of Nigeria is almost like a historic society. It is better called the manufacturing museum association of Nigeria because there are no industries anymore. If you look at the critical sector of the economy, there is no industry.
The IMF isn’t saying what we are saying. We are saying that the policies of the government don’t fit into our socio-economic situation, as they don’t address our needs but the IMF is saying that the government is not punishing us enough because they have not been able to get enough consensus for deeper reforms. The IMF is calling you a resource intensive country. They change their language every time because they change consultants who use new words for them.
They are saying that we are oil export dependent, and as a result of that, we are not able to do the kind of reforms they want. They said that because we fall into the bracket of people who used between two and five percent of their revenue to pay interest on loans, they see it as stress. But, none of the indices deals with the problems we have in the country.
If you keep amplifying what the IMF is saying and you put pressure on the government to react to meet up with the IMF’s standard, things would be worse because the errors they are committing now will make them commit more.
