By SHEDDY OZOENE
After three days of nationwide protests over bad governance in the country, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has scheduled to address the nation on Sunday.
Chief Ajuri Ngelale, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, announced this in a statement, on Saturday. The spokesman said the broadcast would hold at 7am.
The Protesters had requested that the President address the nation on the many demands they have laid out.
There is so far no insight into what the broadcast will contain and it is doubtful that Tinubu chose to address the nation because the protesters said so. However it provides him the opportunity to address certain troubling issues areas in his government and it’s activities.
One of the areas that has received condemnation Is the oil sector which is the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy. Incidentally the President superintends over the sector since he doubles as the Minister of Petroleum.
The poor handling of the newly completed Dangote Refinery by government officials has opened a can of worms and exposed the administration to criticism.
While he is not likely to return the subsidy regime which he abolished on his inauguration on May 29, 2023, he may use the address to make a far-reaching pronouncement on the nation’s energy policy.
So far his promise to return the nation’s refineries to operation has not been kept.
The unwieldy size of his administration is another area that has engendered disquiet. Many people expect that he may address the need to tinker with the size of his government and cut down on personnel costs.
Tinubu nominated the highest number of Ministers in the history of Nigeria at a time the nation’s economy is at its worst.
The third area is his ineffective fiscal policy that has engendered hyperinflation and made the prices of goods, especially food, to skyrocket. With an unprecedented inflation ratio of 34.19 in June, driven by more than 40 percent food inflation, the country is reeling as people find it difficult to feed themselves.
The poverty level in May 2023, when this government came on board and before the dramatic price surge, was 38.9 percent, with an estimated 87 million Nigerians living below the poverty line. Only India presents a worse record.
The reason for the significant price jump is the macroeconomic policies of the Tinubu administration, especially the removal of petroleum and electricity subsidies and the implementation of other neo-liberal economic policies, such as the floating of the naira.
These have led to higher costs for power and fast depreciation of the naira, both of which have aggravated the country’s economic challenges and caused widespread social discontent.
The options open to the government, fiscally, are limited. It could either continue with the ongoing reforms and policies or go back to the pre-Tinubu years when the government was paying unwieldy petroleum subsidies and operated the dual forex exchange system..
Although the Tinubu administration has not come clean over petrol subsidies, which it pays through the backdoor, the option of reversing the policy on petroleum subsidy is not feasible, practical, or sustainable.
The petroleum subsidies bill under President Buhari ballooned such that between June 2022 and his last day in office in May 2023, to over N3 trillion for subsidies, most of which were likely stolen through government corruption.
It appears the most important driver of inflation is the depreciation and instability of the naira, even more so than the high cost of petrol and electricity. It is one area that needs to be revisited.
The government has tried to cushion the effects of its harsh economic policies with certain safety nets, all of which have so far proved defective. While Institutional corruption has claimed his Minister of Poverty Alleviation, Mrs. Betta Edu, he has not introduced any other effectively policy of cushioning the effects of his policies on the people.
Finally, he has rum one of the most expensive administrations, approving humongous amounts for projects that most Nigerians regard as not crucial or people focused.
Among them is the completion of the Vice President’s residence with a whopping N21 billion, the renovation of his Dodan Barracks Lagos guest house with N5billion and the purchase of new Presidential jets.
There are so many areas that need attention. However, it is expected that he may take a cue from recent public disapproval of some policies to make amends.
