Pan-Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, has disclosed that the gross policy implementation of the present administration of President Bola Tinubu will further push Nigeria’s economy down the slope.
Afenifere said the “act of thoughtless policy implementation and its unintended consequences will further push Nigeria’s economy down the slope as Nigeria has officially overtaken India as The New Poverty Capital of the World.”
The group said such a huge economic decision with clear potential for serious deleterious impact on disposable incomes of the already impoverished citizens should never have been made in the cavalier manner as was witnessed.
Afenifere, who insisted that hitting the ground running is more than a slogan or braggadocio declaration, noted that “the run must be well coordinated by competent hands available nationwide and not confined to actors whose efforts have only been exaggerated by the spatial limits of their past endeavours.”
In a statement by its Secretary General, Chief Sola Ebiseni, said: “In less than six weeks, an already asphyxiating economy reeling under the crushing impact of hyperinflation, unemployment, mass hunger and poverty foisted by the gross ineptitude and incompetence that characterized the watch of eight years is looking like an episode drawn straight out of Dante’s Hell.
“Progressive governance, which they have always professed, would have put ahead of everything, the welfare of the citizens, and should never be, or made to seem like, an afterthought.
“If the body is troubled by a tooth that has to be removed, only a quack dentist would dare to pull off the tooth without administering necessary painkillers before, and even after, the removal.”
Ebiseni further stated that the group as a political group and the rallying platform for “social welfarist progressive ideals inexorably committed to the greatest good of the greatest number of Nigerians cannot afford to fold its arms or be seen to maintain silence, neutrality or ambivalence in the face of this latest body blow on an already traumatized citizenry.”
According to him, “Our well-informed position to tarry on comments on the governance of the federation until the final determination of the true holder of the people’s mandate through ongoing judicial processes, may inadvertently be taken for abandonment of our historic role as the people’s ombudsman in the political space, acquiescence in the face of rudderless ship of the state or mistaken to have joined league with those befuddled by chauvinism in laundering incompetence and nepotism or celebrations of inanities.”
He said, “Nigeria is currently caught in a labyrinth of inclement weather of a convoluted election process and its unwieldy outcomes, intractable security problems, and the nightmarish aftermath of a sudden and harsh removal of petrol subsidy on the other.
“Nigeria despite being touted as the 55th largest economy in the world currently ranks 142 out of 167 on the global prosperity index with the expected total number of Nigerians plunged into the deep end of multidimensional poverty to gross 133 million before the end of 2024.
“In the same vein, the number of extremely poor Nigerians for the same period is estimated to hit 71 million which may now be compounded by the multiplier effects of peremptory removal of petrol subsidy, intractable fall of the Naira and surreptitious increase in school fees payable in Federal Government secondary and tertiary educational institutions.
“While the top three Presidential candidates in the last election agreed that the wasteful and corruption- infested Petrol Subsidy had to go, no one however, expected that the Subsidy would be removed in the sudden manner it was done: a seeming off-the-cuff declaration of theremoval of the subsidy, totally ignoring the impact on the people and the economy.
“It is indeed a matter of grave concern that a party and its candidate which made subsidy removal a cardinal campaign issue did not have a plan on the ground to introduce the necessary countervailing palliatives simultaneously to protect the people and the economy.
“If the body is troubled by a tooth that has to be removed, only a quack dentist would dare to pull off the tooth without administering necessary painkillers before, and even after, the removal.
“Those whom our warped and strange constitution has put in the saddle while their legitimacy is yet subject of judicial inquiry are nonetheless expected to act expeditiously to restore hope to the weak in society and protect the economy by introducing quickly, the much needed palliative measures.”
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