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The Afenifere National Publicity Secretary, Prince Justice J Faloye, has said the reported economy being stabilised is not out of design but because it had reached rock bottom after being unnecessarily destabilised by the President Tinubu administration. He stated that the president is not crazy as thought in some quarters but has poor vision and will to revolutionise the economy
He stated: “Two years into the current administration, it is clear that the inflation, closure of seven million businesses, increase of poverty rate from 38% to 54%, and the myriad of economic problems can be traced to his two IMF/World Bank policies of subsidy removal and devaluation. He has not done anything different from previous governments apart from implementing the two policies that have hung around our necks since the late Seventies with the removal of education subsidies.
“President Tinubu is definitely not mad or sadistic, to have knowingly caused such economic destruction, so is there an invisible hand or system that forced his hands? As a nation, we not poor in resources, so is it a poverty of mind, ideology or character? We as a people can’t continue to judge events based on personalities, ethnicity, religion or partisan politics. This makes one to reappraise past presidents to see where the rain started beating us. The issue of subsidy, austere measures and structural adjustments started in 1978 with the removal of education subsidies, ever since not only education but all sectors treated with the same economic ideology have collapsed, and poverty has increased across the nation.
“President Buhari was asked why he didn’t follow the IMF subsidy removal and devaluation prescriptions, and he responded, ‘I can’t do it to my people’. His refusal was suspiciously followed by the loss of 1 million barrels of oil revenue, which is about half our foreign revenue. There are not many oil tankers and refineries in the world for a whole million barrels to go missing everyday without a trace. Surprisingly, when President Tinubu decided to follow the Western IMF World Bank economic reforms, oil theft drastically fell. Government Magic.”
The Afenifere chieftain noted further; “President Jonathan increased electricity production capacity to 13 gigawatts with gas thermal plants and promised 24 hr electricity to major urban centers. However, there was a sustained attack on our gas pipelines by unknown powers. The Minister of Power, Professor Nebo threw up his hands in defeat that there would be no constant electricity until the Gas Wars were over. But he never revealed those behind the sabotage. For eight years we went through the sustained attacks until President Tinubu came to power and it stopped with no explanation of how a ceasefire was achieved.
“No questions asked, no answers proffered as absurdities become normalized. This is the same country that for allowing Chief MKO Abiola to win the 1993 election, General Babaginda a military head of state was made to resign and handover power and the whole country to the CEO of UAC, a scion of the company that first colonized Nigeria. A country that went to Civil War that was a civilizational war painted as a tribal war, fought by many generals but only one was called to the Victory Parade because all others were busy. I don’t know about you, but I find it difficult to accept that we are truly independent. Our political and economic problems seem quite straightforward but for unexplainable reasons our political and economic development remains arrested.
“Politically, Nigeria rests on a warped North-South regionalism that defeats logic since it is neither geographically equidistant, meaning divided at Abuja. Nor is it civilisationally justified by the civilisational boundaries with Zaria being the limits of the Northern Islamic Afro-Asiatic civilization, while the South is from South Kaduna to the Coast. The definition of North and South must be justified civilisationally otherwise the indigenous African groups of the Middle Belt that should be regarded as South, will continue to face political exclusion and ethnic cleansing.
“Economically, it is a basic fact that the economy is made up of two sides – consumer and production. Houses are the core and stimulant of the consumer market, while railways are the core of heavy manufacturing. These two development units are focused upon by any serious developing nation like China and India. It’s no rocket science to understand that Nigeria being the homelessness capital of the world with 30 million homeless people is why it has a weakened consumer market. Railways are the largest production unit that uses iron, chemicals, electrical and a host of other sectors and byproducts. China and India build an average of 15 kilometers of railway every year, and 40,000 houses every day. Nigeria should put aside it contracts systems benefited by prebendal elites, and use direct labour to give the nation the Big Push development practice.
“With the coloniality of knowledge and power sources as well as economy, our Presidents lack vision and sound ideologies, so fall to IMF blackmail that if they don’t devalue the currency to reduce real wages and reenslave their people, the political elites won’t be able to fund their contract system. The Modern Monetary Theory postulates that you can print money to build economic liberating infrastructure, BUT none of the printed money must seep into exports otherwise it would result in inflation and devaluation. This is frowned upon by the Western creditors because our colonial masters are cut out. So it’s not that Tinubu’s Nigeria is poor but the leadership is poor in vision, strategy and will,” concluded Faloye.
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