President Bola Tinubu has defended his administration’s controversial decision to remove fuel subsidies and overhaul the foreign exchange system, decisions which have led to hike in food prices and widespread hunger.
Tinubu has argued that the reforms will improve the economy in the long term, however, Nigerians on August 1 began a protest across Africa’s most populous country to show their anger on worsening conditions of living and rising hunger.
Thousands took to the streets in the protest, dubbed #EndbadGovernanceinNigeria, with Kano, Kaduna and Gombe states witnessing a series of violence, destruction of properties and looting.
However, Tinubu, in a televised broadcast addressing the nation on Sunday, said that the country’s economy had been “anaemic” for decades, which has necessitated his painful decisions to remove fuel subsidies and abolish multiple foreign exchange systems.
He then explained that the removal of fuel subsidies and the abolishment of multiple foreign exchange systems, which had constituted a noose around the economic jugular, impeded the country’s economic development and progress.
“For decades, our economy has remained anaemic and taken a dip because of many misalignments that have stunted our growth. Just over a year ago, our dear country, Nigeria, reached a point where we couldn’t afford to continue the use of temporary solutions to solve long-term problems for the sake of now and our unborn generations,” Tinubu said.
“I therefore took the painful yet necessary decision to remove fuel subsidies and abolish multiple foreign exchange systems which had constituted a noose around the economic jugular of our nation and impeded our economic development and progress.”
The President also explained that these actions were aimed at curbing “the greed and the profits that smugglers and rent-seekers made,” as well as rendering the country’s economy prostrate.
“These decisions I made were necessary if we must reverse the decades of economic mismanagement that didn’t serve us well,” Tinubu stated.
“Yes, I agree, the buck stops on my table. But I can assure you that I am focused fully on delivering the governance to the people – good governance for that matter.”
Tinubu also pointed out that in the past 14 months, his government has made significant strides in rebuilding the foundation of our economy to carry us into a future of plenty and abundance.
On the fiscal side, he said aggregate government revenues have more than doubled, hitting over 9.1 trillion Naira in the first half of 2024 compared to the first half of 2023, due to efforts at blocking leakages, introducing automation, and mobilising funding creatively without additional burden on the people.
According to him, productivity is gradually increasing in the non-oil sector, reaching new levels and taking advantage of the opportunities in the current economic environment.
“My dear brothers and sisters, we have come this far. Coming from a place where our country spent 97% of all our revenue on debt service, we have been able to reduce that to 68% in the last 13 months. We have also cleared legitimate outstanding foreign exchange obligations of about $5 billion without any adverse impact on our programmes.
“This has given us more financial freedom and the room to spend more money on you, our citizens, to fund essential social services like education and healthcare. It has also led to our state and local governments receiving the highest allocations ever in our country’s history from the Federation Account.”
