The 2023 presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Prince Adewole Adebayo has faulted the 2025 budget proposals as presented by President Bola Tinubu to the National Assembly last week, noting that it is unrealistic and full of contradictions.
He also lambasted the minister of Finance and the coordinating minister of the economy, Mr Wale Edun, for not showing a coordinated thought process in the making of the budget.
He wondered why a finance minister would be happy that it was good for the country going to London, borrowing.
Adebayo, “Though he is supposed to be coordinator of the economy. He is not coordinated. The thinking isn’t coordinated. It is not a good day when the finance minister believes the day he goes a borrowing in London is a good day. A good day for Nigeria when Nigeria goes overseas to give investments in the capital market from the excess production that we have,” he stated.
According to him, the exchange rates fixed in the budget is not realistic. “The proposals are self contradictory. For example, you are working towards, in their mind, if they are able to succeed, they are working towards 15% inflation , any basic microeconomist knows that you must never have double digit inflation”.
He argued that when the political class is populated by decent characters with integrity, a lot of the problems associated with politics and politicians would be solved.
He said: “The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) itself has a bit of connivance, whether for the sustainability of their appointment or whether people have discovered that they can get rich by taking advantage of the desperation of politicians.
“Most of the problems of an election don’t arise from the INEC. They arise from the political parties. More political parties commit crimes in their primaries than they accuse INEC of.
“So, whatever error the INEC commits, the politicians and political parties even commit more. People bribe delegates for elections. Party chairmen and secretaries switch names like the game of domino.
“So, the political class is guilty. I agree with the submission that politicians contribute to the problems during elections but INEC is supposed to be a professional class and should not collaborate with the politicians to rig elections.”
Adebayo also spoke on the issue of rotational presidency emphasizing that if it must achieve any positive result, it should be at two levels.
He noted that much as it is good to rotate it according to the geopolitical zone for peace to reign among the elite, it must also be rotated from the elite to the people for growth and justice to happen in Nigeria. “If you are rotating from North to South and all of that and rotating about the same wasteful elite who have no idea, you will be rotating poverty, insecurity and others.
“But if you rotate inter generationally, that is from the old people to the young ones and ideologically from those who follow the International Monetary Fund (IMF) –World Bank, to those who have indigenous, authentic and pro-Nigeria idea, you would have some progress for the country,” he submitted.
On Nigeria’s borrowing and the finance minister’s recent statement about it he noted that much as he would wish a good day for Nigeria, it pains him to note that it is not a good day when the finance minister believes the day he goes aborrowing in London is a good day.
“How can it be a good day when Nigeria goes overseas to make investments in the capital market from the excess production that we have? No minister that we had in the past will say the day we went aborrowing was a good day,” he said.
When reminded that even countries as big as America borrow, he said: “America borrows from within. You borrow from your own currency. I am not quarrelling with them borrowing the currency they issued. When you are borrowing Euro bonds, borrowing currency from other people in other capitals of the world, it’s a sign of a crisis. Yes, you can do it but you don’t say it’s a good day for you.
“If you are anaemic and your neighbour comes to donate blood to you, you should be grateful but you don’t say that’s the best day of your life, because you are not supposed to be anaemic in the first place.They need to run the economy in such a way that we can generate capital for ourselves.
