Why everything went wrong despite Tinubu-Fayemi’s good economic policies

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

He was referring to the removal of fuel subsidies and the convergence of Nigerian foreign exchange platforms announced by President Tinubu in his inaugural speech on May 29 last year.

Fayemi said that while these policies were appropriate, the administration was too hasty in implementing them because it did not adequately prepare for the impact.

“I think there have been some mistakes, not that the policy changes are bad,” Fayemi, a leading member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), said while appearing on Channels Television’s Politics Today program on Friday.

The former Minister of Solid Minerals Development during the first term of recent President Muhammadu Buhari admitted that the Tinubu administration inherited challenges from the previous term, which he said necessitated policy changes.

“I actually think that the policy changes that were made were the right policy changes, but the announcement at the launch was a bit hasty and did not leave enough room to prepare the enabling circumstances that would enable us to meet the challenges that are sure to come in terms of inflation once fuel subsidies are removed and monetary convergence. And since then we seem to have gone downhill,” Fayemi said.

The Tinubu administration began implementing the subsidy removal policy on its first day in office, strikingly announcing in its inaugural speech last May that “subsidies are gone.” However, the administration waited for about two weeks before introducing the naira rate in order to achieve convergence of exchange rates across platforms.

But since then, the year-old Tinubu administration has been struggling to cope with the effects of the policy, including skyrocketing inflation and the accompanying high cost of living.

Who to blame?

The former governor, who was one of the 22 presidential aspirants who contested against Tinubu on the APC presidential ticket ahead of the 2023 presidential elections, has blamed political leaders across the country for the economic hardships faced by Nigerians as a result of these policies.

“Political leaders in the country definitely cannot absolve themselves from the worsening factor of the economic challenges we face, and yes, ordinary Nigerians should blame us and hold us accountable for our failure to improve their lives,” said Fayemi, who withdrew in middle of the 2022 APC presidential primaries to support Tinubu.

READ ALSO: APC primaries: Nine candidates who withdrew and supported

However, cautioning against generalizing the country’s “macroeconomic challenges”, he said every level of government contributes to the health of Nigeria’s economy.

“Yes, we are a federation and there is a central government that can take responsibility, in particular for fiscal policy and also for monetary policy. But we also need to find a way to look at the differences in what is happening in the federal center and across states to get a full picture of our trajectory toward democracy,” he said.

He also noted that government officials recognize problems and “are trying to solve them as best they can.”

Tinubu, Fayemi’s political journey, APC

Messrs. Tinubu and Fayemi are allies whose origins date back to the war, the fight to restore democratic rule.

Fayemi enjoyed the support of Tinubu, a former Lagos State governor who was to become Ekiti State governor from 2010 to 2014.

They remained solid allies until their relationship became strained when Fayemi lost his re-election bid for the incumbent governor in 2014.

Many believe the rift between the two widened after APC won the first presidential election and Fayemi became Minister of Solid Minerals Development under President Buhari in 2015.

He remained a minister until 2018, when he decided not to run again and won the election as governor of Ekiti State for a second term.

The APC foundation member failed to restore good relations between him and the president.

Between APC promises and delivery

The former 2019-2022 Chairperson of the Nigeria Governors Forum also assessed the APC’s implementation of promises made to Nigerians during its campaign to assume the presidency in 2015.

“Am I concerned about how things have gone so far? Of course,” Fayemi said. “I am a founding member of this party; I was one of the authors of the original manifesto that we sold to Nigerians in 2015.”

He said that as policy director for 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 this, but we have neglected the relationship between the party and the government,” he said.

“Nigerians will decide the future of APC.”

On Friday, he said Nigerians would decide the future of their party depending on their assessment of its performance since it came to power in 2015.

“We must also confront the reality that in a democracy, the Nigerian people have the final say. If they are not satisfied with our political party, they must take a decision on this issue,” he said.

While he assured that “the situation will start to improve” because “the government has only been in power for a year”, he maintained that “if the situation does not improve, Nigerians reserve the right to decide what they want to do with us.”

Errors in APC

Fayemi pointed to lapses in the functioning of the APC, which he said had deprived the party of its ability to hold the government it helped to bring to account.

“We don’t even have the necessary bodies in our party to function as well as they should,” he said, noting that the party has no national executive committee, caucus or council of elders.

“There is no doubt that there are things that the party must do and for which the government must be held accountable,” the former governor said.

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

The party has adopted as its main ideology social democratic prosperity, which aims to ensure participatory democracy and controlled regulation of the economy in favor of the public interest.