The presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the last general elections, Peter Obi, has slammed what he called ‘haphazard’ implementation of the fuel subsidy removal and the floating of the naira but said there was nothing wrong with these moves.
Obi made these observations on Monday during an interview on Arise TV.
The administration of President Bola Tinubu announced the removal of the fuel subsidy and the harmonisation of the segments of the foreign exchange market within a month of getting into office. While economists have hailed the moves, they also have faulted the implementation.
Obi argued that the government’s approach lacked organisation and prioritisation of national productivity.
“I’ve consistently maintained that I would have removed the fuel subsidy. If you go to my manifesto, there are steps I would have taken to do it in an organised manner. There was nothing wrong in the removal of the subsidy; what is wrong is the haphazard way in which it was announced and implemented,” he said.
He went further, “Everybody knows that the subsidy regime had a lot of corruption surrounding it, which you needed to handle. Since you’re doing it for savings, we are told we’re doing it because we don’t want to continue to borrow to continue the subsidy, and the removal of it will be able to have available funds to be invested in critical areas of development. We’ve done it. Billions have been saved, but where is it? Where are the funds invested in those critical areas?”
He lamented that there has been no significant improvement in key areas of the lives of Nigerians despite the savings from the fuel subsidy removal.
Sharing his alternative approach, Obi said that his “organised manner” would have involved ramping up production in agriculture and manufacturing before implementing the policies.
Obi argued that currency devaluation or floating only attracts investment and makes products marketable when a nation is productive. Without productivity, he warned, floating or devaluing the currency makes products unmarketable, resulting in a “double whammy” for the economy.
“There’s nothing wrong with floating your currency; there’s nothing wrong in even devaluing your currency, but you cannot do this without productivity. What the valuation or floating does is that your currency becomes weak in terms of value so you attract investment, and your products become marketable, but then where you are unproductive, you have nothing to sell, so it’s a double whammy. So in all these, I would have done the same thing but in an organised manner,” he asserted.
To implement such reforms effectively, Obi suggested sitting down with operators to agree on pricing and dedicating whatever is saved to specific critical areas, rather than just sharing it like other revenue. He emphasised the need for national planning.
Furthermore, the former Anambra State Governor questioned the priorities in national spending, particularly concerning large infrastructure projects amidst insecurity and power problems.
He said, “If you say our problem is insecurity, they (farmers) can’t go to the farm. Our problem is a power problem. Let’s deal with those things. Let’s use our resources to tackle these fundamental issues first.”
He argued that security is “more fundamental than roads” and that resources should be used to secure the country before building new roads.
Referencing the coastal highway project of the Tinubu administration, Obi said, “Security is more fundamental than roads. Would you prefer a road to your village when you cannot drive to your village? If you say our problem is insecurity, that farmers can’t go to farms, our problem is power. Let’s deal with those things.”
