The 2023 presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Prince Adewole Adebayo, on Saturday, said President Bola Tinubu, having inherited a poorly managed economy from the late President Muhammadu Buhari, has not been able to identify the real problem ailing the economy.
Speaking in an interview, the SDP Chieftain linked the economy President Tinubu inherited from Buhari to an emergency room patient, whose condition has only been stabilised, but the real ailment has not been found by the doctors.
According to the SDP chieftain, Tinubu has only managed to stabilise the economy from the emergency room situation, but he has not been able to identify the country’s ailment.
He, however, added that the economy, in terms of numbers, is not worse now than it was last year, noting that it is slightly better, “but far, far away from where it ought to be”.
He said, “Well, it’s obvious that the economy President Buhari left was a poorly managed economy. It is like an emergency room patient. As an emergency room patient, your road to recovery depends on a good diagnosis by the doctor.
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“So, if the doctor is able to know the reason you are ill, he will be able to put you on a solid path to recovery. What President Tinubu has done is to stabilise the patient, but I’m not so sure he has managed to identify the ailment. So, the patient is not going to die immediately, but he hasn’t found a cure.
“He hasn’t been able to identify the problem, the ailment that is disturbing the patient, but as an emergency room doctor, he has taken some steps.
“Some of the steps actually aggravated the case of the patient, but over time, he appears to have one or two wins in two sectors, which is why it appears that he could be deceived into thinking that the patient is on the road to recovery.
“One, he has managed to get more revenue, at least in nominal terms, and the domestic borrowing that was a feature of President Buhari’s public finance has reduced. So, he has managed to get some revenues in.
“Of course, because of other wrong policies, that money he has gotten, in real terms, will not be able to finance a lot of government spending and infrastructure.
“However, in terms of the balance sheet, Tinubu has managed to have a better balance sheet than what Buhari left for him.
“The second thing that helped them, which we’ll know in the long run whether it’s really a good thing to do, was that they rebased inflation. So, they started counting inflation differently. If they say inflation has dropped to about 20.7 per cent now from 21.7 per cent last month, it’s not because the economy is performing better but because the counting has changed.
“Whether the accounting is more reflective of reality, let us see what happens by the first quarter of next year when they are implementing their budget. Remember that the 2025 budget doesn’t appear to have come on stream yet. So, we won’t be able to know how that works in terms of macroeconomics.
“Then, the third thing that has worked for them is the relative fall in food inflation. Food inflation has dropped, and food inflation is a major component of the inflation basket.
“Since the prices of foodstuffs have come down a lot, it’s not that those at home are going to feel it because it hasn’t dropped to the level where they can feel it, but it has dropped in the numbers.
