A former lawmaker in the Lagos State House of Assembly representing Ojo Constituency 1, Dr. Victor Oluwasegun Akande, has expressed optimism about the future of Nigeria. In an interview with OLADIPUPO AWOJOBI, Dr. Akande stated that the policies of the current administration, particularly those focused on agriculture and small-and medium-scale enterprises, are poised to drive long-term development. He also emphasised the importance of paying taxes as a means to support national growth. Excerpts:
Some of the policies of the current administration started manifesting in 2024, what would be your assessment of the year based on these policies as it affects the economy and development?
The years 2023 and 2024 should be considered together. Year 2023 was the end of an era and as we moved to 2024 and going to 2025, we are seeing the real end of an era. Then there is the dawn of a new beginning.
How do you mean?
We all know that the economic situation of the country has never been so good. The country is bleeding seriously and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu inherited economic jeopardy. This needs to be resuscitated and you can only do this with policies that will affect the masses positively. But unfortunately, from day one, having understudied situation of the country and the policies the former administration put in place that are not beneficial to the nation, the administration started on a very strong tone, strong foundation and strong policies. The first policy was on the fist day that ‘subsidy is gone.’ It takes a bold heart and someone with a large heart to make that decision knowing that the decision can take the country to the cleaners. This is because most of the people who are benefiting from this are found in the corridors of power and they might not allow that policy statement to work and they will do everything to make sure that the policy does not se the light of the day.
But with the knowledge of that, is it expedient for a leader to take such step?
That was why I said it took somebody with a large heart to make such decision. President Bola Tinubu did not do trial and error. If it were to be trial and error, he would have failed. He didn’t want to try to see if it would work or not, he just nailed it on the head. The era of subsidy is gone. Fuel subsidy and several other things that were being subsidised were reviewed. Dollar was being subsidised, consumption tax and so many other things were being subsidised. People thought it was only fuel that was being subsidised. If you want your people to enjoy, you have to subsidise many things that are being imported. It will affect the people positively, but it will deflate our pockets negatively as a nation. When we say subsidy, it’s not only fuel, it’s all the barrage of many products, which was why it hit the general public because we had been living in our own shadow of economic reality. We thought this is the way it is, but we didn’t know that was not who we were. We are not economically bouyant so, it collapsed. Thank God for President Tinubu, who actually allowed us to know who we are. If the government didn’t remove subsidy, we would still be living a borrowed life, and a life of pretence. We thought we were good, but we were gone. We are just like a house that is standing, but the walls of the building were not made with cement, they were made with chaff.
One would have expected a gradual removal so that when you removed fuel subsidy, you would not float the naira or increase taxes, the whole thing just hit the masses at a the same time, and this affected more than 90% of the population…
Prior to the coming to power of President Tinubu, do you think he did not understudy the economic policies of the country? Don’t you think he did his own research and he saw where the shoes pinched and he felt that the best thing was to hit the nail on the head. If it had been done gradually, we would not get to where we are today, we would not face the economic reality and we would be pretending that all was well. Secondly, it caught the perpetrators of the dastardly act unaware and it would take time before they adjust. He needed that little time to hit the ground running. How many years have this administration spent in office and when they inherited the economy, juxtapose what they inherited with what we have now, is the country going down or reviving?
So, what have been the gains of these policies specifically?
What have we gained, we have started reorientiating out psyche; poverty is awakening who we are and what we can do. Everybody is now running to see what he or she can do to survive. There is no more wastage like before, you now regulate electricity and fuel, we are now at alert.
Is that not hardship?
No, it’s economic reality. We are not poor, and when people say we are poor, you see churches everywhere in Nigeria, but in advanced countries, they count industries, not churches. In the past, because life was so easy, people used to sleep in the church, how many of them do you see in churches now, when they are hungry and planning how to get money or how to maintain their families. We have now woken up to economic reality. There is no more wastage on the part of the people or the government. If the government wants to embark on any wastage now, people would raise the alarm and they would find a way to cut it down. They might not do it directly, but they would listen and dance round it and withdraw unlike what they used to do in the past, so there is a responsive culture now. But most importantly, we are reawakening that tendency of leadership and ability to think in all of us. The government is now churning out policies that will impact on the people positively. They removed subsidy and floated the naira, and this brought hardship on the people. But they are trying to strengthen the naira unlike before when we thought the money was there, meanwhile we were using money to buy money and defend our naira so that it would not fall, which later brought financial burden on the country. The repercussion is more hardship on the people, which is what we are suffering today. This was based on poor policies of the past.
When subsidy was removed, we were importing fuel, now we have Dangote Refinery and the Port Harcourt Refinery is now working, why is fuel still expensive?
What the present administration is doing now is that we don’t want to depend on fuel again, let us diversify. Let us look at agriculture, which is where the issue of food security comes into play. Are we doing well as we used to do, how can we learn from these mistakes? There are a lot of various policies by this government to better agricultural activities. Also, how can we encourage the medium and small scale businesses, what is their problem, how do we come in to help them grow their businesses? There are various policies, some of them had been there, but they did not see the light of the day or get to the end users. These were due to the corrupt nature of the people, who were managing the funds and implementing the policies of government. But things are changing as many people are more enlightened and many things are happening. We now have a lot of whistle blowers that will call you out if you don’t do it the way the government wants it.
You can see what is happening with the tax reform bills… That shows you that the government listens. But the bill is to help individual state and region.
People believe that the government has still not blocked leakages and that there is still corruption in many places. They say the National Assembly is spending about 25% of the budget, what do you think should be done about this?
Who put the members of the National Assembly there? It is the people. That money they are taking, who are they spending it on? If you are not there you cannot know what they go through. A lot of people put their problems on them. None of them will tell you that his salary is enough to take care of every exigency that comes to his or her table from his people and outside. You can get letters from any state and anybody can come to you for assistance once you are in a public office. What they have is not even enough for them to solve the problems of the people. Yet, people will say you have not done anything.
President Tinubu has been traveling to many countries including the United States of America, Britain, France, and other places, yet he has not been to the states in Nigeria, what would be your comments on this?
What will going to the states in Nigeria generate for us, how will it impact on our economy? President travels to those foreign countries to attract businesses and investments, he goes there to help the country grow and stabilise the nation. He goes there to tell them not to be afraid of what they hear about Nigeria. He needs their confidence and they need his confidence for them to invest and think of industrialising the country. If he is going to the states in Nigeria of what benefit would that be to us? I believe those saying this are not well informed and they don’t know about foreign policies that would help the country.
The tax reform bill has become contentious, what do you think should be done about it?
We don’t have a system that captures the taxes, where payable taxes are captured and automated. Go and work abroad and earn $10,000 and see how much will remain from the money. Go and start using electricity and you will see how much you will pay. We waste electricity here, go and try it abroad if you would not come back empty handed. Tax will help us to develop the country. It will be painful but it’s going to help us. We are shouting now because we don’t have tax management tradition or culture unlike what happens in the developed world. We have many laws that we don’t practise. Now that we want to implement them, many people are shouting because we don’t know. When COVID-19 came, nobody knew there were some laws around it. We now started amending the laws that we have had then with the new laws to make them stronger. That is the issue with the tax laws. They are only amending the old ones to suit the present situation. It was this same tax the various regions used to develop. All that the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo did in the Western Region, some of those things they did in the North, when they had the groundnut pyramid and the coal in Enugu were from tax. It’s an opportunity for us to get more money to make the rich to pay according to their status. It will benefit the poor more, but they have not been paying it and they see it as more hardship. They think the government wants to kill them. You cannot do that abroad, you will even beg them to allow you pay, when they catch you. Nigeria wants to develop, but some people don’t want us to develop.
