ECONOMIC REFORMS: THE WORST IS BEHIND US, SAYS OYODELE

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The Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Taiwo Oyedele has assured Nigerians that the ongoing economic reforms by the Bola Ahmed administration are beginning to yield good results.

Oyedele gave the assurance in his speech while enlightening the audience on the benefits of the ongoing reforms on The Platform organised by the Covenant Nation on Saturday.

He emphasised that removing petrol subsidies is the best decision Nigeria could ever make.

“Removing subsidies is the best decision we made as a country. And we can now say that for once, subsidy is gone.

“We were living on window-dressed realities. If you look back to about two years ago, naira exchange rate was N450 depending on who you asked. But was our exchange rate really N450? If you wanted to buy petrol, it was under N200 per litre, but was it really under N200 per litre? “There wasnt band A at the time. Electricity was what time at the time, but was that really the price? A country can afford to sell petrol at N200 per litre if you can afford it. But there is everything wrong if you can not afford it.

“I am a parent and will like to send my kids to school. If I can afford a school of N200 million her term, no problem. But if I cannot, they will do just first term and wont be able to continue their education. Maybe they should go to a school of N200, 000 per term.

“So, Nigeria was doing worse than it ought to, and then we had this sense of “our economy was not doing great”. We thought thsat our economy is the largest in Africa.

“Our GDP was around N450 million dollars. We thought our per capita income is about $2, 000 per person but it was not up to that.

“Nigeria used all its revenue to service debts. We were not paying debts back o. we were just servicing it. In order what, everything other thing we did, from paying salaries to fighting Boko Haram, we were just borrowing.

“When Nigeria borrowed, we borrowed high digits and those were the funds we were using to run the economy and service debts.

“If anybody was not losing his sleep with just that alone, then, he must be from another planet. The outcome of what was happening was predictable. It was a Sri Lanka happening to us. It was a Venezuela.

“Their countries were that- you would hold money and you wouldn’t be able to get fuel to buy. There was a tile in Sri Lanka that you couldn’t drive your car every day of the week because there was no fuel.

“Our GDP growth rate was very low. Over the past ten years less than 10 per cent. If you do it in real-time, it is negative.

He explained that the Nigerian government had resorted to printing of money to spend, which according to him was the worst any country could ever do.

“Ways and Means was high. We were printing money to spend. We couldn’t borrow abroad because they said lending us was risky. We didn’t have cash flow. And the capacity to borrow locally was low. So we were printing money to spend, and that is even dangerous.

“We printed close to N40 trillion naira plus interest. And we were surprised there was inflation. Nigerians don’t realise that the invisible controls the visible. And that is because the removal of subsidies is not seen physically. It is not something you can touch.

“Even some airlines stopped flying to Nigeria because of the backlog of FX debt to foreign airlines.

He advised Nigerians to have a positive outlook on the country.

“There is nothing wrong with Nigeria. But maybe there is something wrong with the people ruling Nigeria.

“In America, people get killed every day by gunmen. But have you ever heard Americans say “May America never happen to you?’

Let’s stop saying “May Nigeria never happen to you’. Maybe we can turn it into “May Nigeria work for me”

“Going by available data, I personally believe that the worst is behind us, he said.

Since assuming office in May 2023, President Tinubu has implemented a number of reforms such as the removal of fuel subsidies and introduction of the controversial tax bills.

The removal of fuel subsidies has since spiralled into increase in prices of goods and services.