•Wariboko and Tinubu
A Professor of Social Ethics at Boston University, Nimi Wariboko, says President Bola Tinubu has not produced any result so far to show that he came prepared into office.
“Eight months into a government system is too long not to have a plan,” the author and investment banker said on Channels Television last night.
He lamented that the President, who won the February 2023 presidential election on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) had no laid-down plan to cushion the economic effects of the petrol subsidy removal and other policies.
Wariboko described the current administration’s policies as “knee-jerk reactions”, saying that the government of the day lacks vision.
He said, “There’s no point complaining about (ex-President Muhammadu) Buhari. There’s no point complaining about the goodness or the expectation of Buhari. Now, the ball is in his (Tinubu’s) court and he has to do it because he said it was his turn.
“People keep saying he was prepared; he’s been a politician but
the test of everything is the result we are seeing and I don’t think
we have seen any results so far that would justify that accolade being heaped upon him.
“The Bible says: If your strength fails you on the day of adversity. it is small. I always tell people that: If your strength fails you on the day of adversity, it was not there. It’s a simple case; we are not seeing the result, we are not even seeing
a clear vision of where the country is going.”
Nigeria is battling rising inflation, food inflation, forex crisis, economic hardship and high cost of living occasioned by the removal of petrol subsidy, attracting protests in parts of the country.
The Nigerian naira has seen a dip in the last nine months since the Tinubu administration collapsed the foreign exchange window. The naira experienced an all-time low, falling from about N700/$1 last May to over N1500/$1 at the moment.
Similarly, the price per litre of Premium Motor Spirit also known as petrol jumped over 350% from N184 last May to over N600 at the moment, depending on the location.
The country’s wobbling economy has been a source of worry to economists, opposition parties, labour unions and civil society organisations who continue to call on the Tinubu administration to fulfil its campaign promises. The federal government has reeled out some measures in the last few weeks but Nigerians continue to grapple with the weight of high cost of living.
