Why things went wrong despite Tinubu’s good economic policies – Fayemi

Former Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi reviewed President Bola Tinubu’s key economic policies on Friday, which he admitted have taken a toll on the living conditions of Nigerians in the first year of his administration.

He referred to the removal of fuel subsidy and the convergence of Nigeria’s foreign exchange platforms announced by President Tinubu in his inauguration speech on 29 May last year.

Mr Fayemi said that although the policies were appropriate, the administration was unduly hasty with their implementation because it did not prepare adequately for the fallouts.

“I think there were some missteps, not that the policy changes are wrong,” Mr Fayemi, a top member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), said while appearing on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Friday.

The former Minister of Solid Mineral Development during the first term of the immediate past President Muhammadu Buhari acknowledged that the Tinubu administration inherited challenges from the previous one, which, he said, made the policy changes necessary.

“I actually think the policy changes made were the appropriate policy changes, but the announcement at the inauguration was a little bit precipitate and did not allow for enough room to prepare the ameliorating circumstances that would address the challenges that were bound to come in terms of inflation with the fuel subsidy removal and foreign exchange convergence, And from then, we seem to have gone downhill,” Mr Fayemi said.

The Tinubu administration began implementing the subsidy removal policy on its first day in office. The president strikingly announced, “subsidy is gone,” in his inauguration address in May last year. However the administration waited a few months before floating the naira to achieve a convergence of exchange rates across platforms after some time.

But, since then, the one-year-old administration of Mr Tinubu has been battling to deal with the fallout of the policies, including skyrocketing inflation with attendant high living costs.

Who is to blame?

The former governor, who was one of the 22 presidential aspirants that jostled for the APC presidential ticket with Mr Tinubu ahead of the 2023 presidential election, blamed political leaders across the country for the economic hardship Nigerians are grappling with as a result of the policies.

“The political leadership in the country definitely cannot absolve itself of the deteriorating factor of the economic challenges we are facing, and yes, ordinary Nigerians should blame us and hold us to account for not making their lives better,” said Mr Fayemi, who withdrew in the middle of the APC presidential primary election in 2022 to back Mr Tinubu.

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But cautioning against generalising the country’s “macroeconomic challenges”, he said each tier of government contributed to the state of Nigeria’s economy.

“Yes, we are a federation and there is a central government which gets to take responsibility, for fiscal policies particularly and monetary policies, as well. But you also must find a way to look at variations in what is happening at the federal centre and in various states to draw a full picture of our trajectory in the democratic journey,” he said.

He also noted that government officials recognised the problems and are “trying to address that to the best of their ability.”

Tinubu, Fayemi’s political, APC journey

Messrs Tinubu and Fayemi are allies dating back to the military-era struggle to restore democratic governance.

Mr Fayemi enjoyed the support of Mr Tinubu, a former Lagos State governor, to become the Ekiti State governor between 2010 and 2014.

They remained solid allies until they started having a strained relationship after Mr Fayemi lost his bid to win re-election as the incumbent governor in 2014.

Many believe that the gulf between them widened after the APC won its first presidential election and Mr Fayemi became the Minister of Solid Mineral Development during the Buhari presidency in 2015.

He remained a minister until 2018, when he resigned to re-contest and won the Ekiti State governorship election for a second term.

The APC foundation member has been unable to restore the relationship between him and the president to its good time.

Between APC’s promises and delivery

The former chairperson of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum between 2019 and 2022 also assessed APC’s delivery on its promises to Nigerians while campaigning to take the presidency in 2015.

“Am I worried about the way things have gone so far? Certainly,” Mr Fayemi said. “I am a foundation member of this party; I was one of those who drafted the original manifesto that we sold to Nigerians in 2015.”

He said as the director of policy in the 2015 campaign that brought then President Buhari to office, he was familiar with “the vision we shared with Nigerians”.

“I believe our party is still committed to that, but we have fallen short in the relationship between party and government,” he said.

‘Nigerians will decide APC’s future’

He said on Friday that Nigerians would decide the future of their party depending on their assessment of its performance since 2015 when it gained power.

“The reality must also be confronted that the Nigerian people in a democracy have the last word. If they are not happy with our political party, then they have to take the decision on that front,” he said.

Although he assured that “things will begin to improve” as “the government has only been in office for one year,” he maintained that “if things don’t improve, then Nigerians reserve the right to decide what they want to do with us.”

Lapses in APC

Mr Fayemi pointed out lapses in the running of the APC, which he said robbed the party its capacity to hold the government it helped to install accountable.

“We don’t even have the necessary organs within our party functioning as well as they should,” he said, noting that the party has not had its national executive committee, caucus, and elders council.

“So clearly, there are things that the party needs to do that ought to hold the government to account,” the former governor said.

The APC is a product of the merger of three legacy political parties – Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) – alongside some defectors from the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2013.

The party adopted as its core ideology social democratic welfarism which aims to ensure participatory democracy and controlled regulation of the economy in favour of public interest.