The 2023 Presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Prince Adewole Adebayo, has said that Nigeria needs reforms that would stabilize economic policies in the country.
Speaking as a keynote speaker at the J9C 13th anniversary lecture, Adebayo said it’s not every change in government policy that is reform, adding that reform must be a fundamental change in the way any activity, program policy, or anything is being done.
He said: “When we are talking of economic reform, what we were having as a consensus is that it must affect the policies that affect the economic growth of a country.
“It must bring efficiencies, and it must lead to stability. And when you do all of that, you will know when something is just a government program, because many programs have been passed off as reforms.
“When the government comes to power, whether you voted for them or not, they are saying we are taking these measures on your behalf.
“Therefore, whether you authorize them to do it or not, you are entitled to comment on it, to review it, and to suggest better ways to get it done, or whether it should be done at all.
“The first thing a government needs to do is call “Fiscal Reform,” because a government that cannot pay its way is not a government.
“And to do fiscal reform, you must be able to handle the revenue that the government is collecting. And anyone who has listened to the government since Balewa up to now will tell you that no government has been able to say that we are able to collect an account for the revenue of this country.
“When I was running for President, my first speech centred around the question of whether we’re collecting our oil revenue.
“Because I can make some speeches, I said that showed that at a time, 80% of the of the crude oil revenue was being stolen. The only answer I got from the government, especially through the Navy, was that I was exaggerating the number, that it wasn’t up to 80% but we all agreed that substantial revenue was being stolen.
“And why is important was that there was a time when Shehu Shagari under Yakubu Gowon government, was Minister of Finance, and he visited the oil wells and oil fields, and he saw fuel stations where they were loading ships.
“And he asked them casually that how will you know if what we are loading is what they paid for, they said we use the weight of the ship and the level of the ballast to measure, so he came back and wrote a report and noted that his predecessor, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, had mandated that all the filling stations should be metered.
“And Shagari insisted that, with immediate effect, all the flow stations must be metered, but Shagari died, I spent some time with him before he died in Sokoto, but he died, and many of the oils Wells have not been metered.
“So he shows to you that there was a fundamental need for reform in the way we even measure, whether we collect our revenue or not from crude oil is not being done. And I don’t think, despite many of the reforms being discussed about that, that has been done at all.
“The implication of that is that if you cannot account for the revenue which you are collecting, then where do you start to build government?”
According to Adebayo, Nigeria must reform the way government expenditure is made. He said there must be a rationalization of government spending.
