The Director General of The Progressives Institute (TPI), Mr. Lanre Adebayo has said that President Bola Tinubu acted like a statesman and not a politician when he embarked on painful reforms, including petrol subsidy removal and floating of Naira as soon as he assumed office.
Adedayo stated this on Thursday in Abuja at the signing of Memorandum of Understanding between Jade and Jaydens Services Limited and TPI.
He noted there had been critical areas of national development, which previous leaders shy away from.
Adebayo stressed that under the military government,the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) was a good example of a policy that failed.
He said SAP failed because leaders always fear to confront issues that might temporarily affect their popularity.
Adebayo stated: “I also remember during the Obasanjo period, the government spent billions of Naira to canvass for privatisation, removal of fuel subsidy and floating of Naira. At the end of the day, the government didn’t do anything about it. Again, for fear of the huge political cost that may entail.
“President (Muhammadu) Buhari also tried. Same thing with President (Goodluck) Jonathan, but none of them was able to meaningfully confront a major strategic area of our economy — which is the consumption of the money we were making from oil and also the money we were also using to subsidise consumption through subsidised forex regime.
“And on May 29th 2023, President Bola Tinubu courageously and boldly announced the removal of fuel subsidy. Some people said, well, it was too fatal that he should have avoided doing it because of the likely impact on the economy. The same thing on the removal of floating the denier.
“And you know, statesmen are always concerned about the long term impact of reforms, politicians are always concerned about winning and therefore always avoid taking painful decisions.
“President Bola Tinubu, of course, we know his antecedent. He boldly removed the oil subsidy and the reason for that is this, for every dollar we spend on oil subsidy, we are consuming the money we made.”
Adebayo recalled that before 2023, most state governors were borrowing money to pay salaries, adding that today, there is no state government that is borrowing to pay salaries.
He added: “All state governors are embarking on massive infrastructure development. You may not agree on their emphasis, but the fact is that they have a lot more resources to work with. The same thing with local governments.
“What happened with removal of subsidy, therefore, is to remove money from consumption to investment, to production. That is what most sane leaders all over the world do. They free money from consumption to production.
“Of course, there was an immediate impact on prices, but as we have seen the last one year or thereabout even the prices of petroleum are already responding to the dynamics of the interplay of the free market system.”
Also, the Leader of Progressive Local Government Chairmen Forum, and Chairman of Chanchaga local government, Minna, Dr. Mustapha Jibril said that the President has started some reforms that the previous government has refused to delve into.
He noted that local government chairmen are the ones that would help them to know what is happening at the grassroots and what the people are facing.
According to him, Though we have had some issues about insecurity in Niger, the response from the government has been encouraging. Some achievements have been recorded and some progress have been made and we need to ensure that we communicate those achievements clearly to the people.
He assured of the forum’s support to ensure that the message about the government’s achievements is sent out loud and clear.