The Social Democratic Party’s (SDP) presidential candidate for the 2023 election, Adewole Adebayo, remarked that while President Bola Tinubu has assembled a competent team, his economic strategies are not well-suited for Nigerians.
Adebayo made these comments during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, expressing his view that the approach taken by the Tinubu administration was not appropriate.
He said, “He (Tinubu) has the right team but what he wants to do is not correct.”
“If I were to be Nigeria’s President, I wouldn’t remove petrol subsidy from day one as President but would have approached the National Assembly to amend the 2023 Appropriation Act to allow subsidy for a while.”
Adebayo said, “These policies are not good, not because of the party that is announcing them but because they are not suitable to us.”
He added that any of the presidential candidates in the last poll who adopted the policies of the incumbent would have gotten the same results evident in the country at the moment.
“It doesn’t matter whom you put there, this will be the outcome once you adopt these policies,” he said.
The former presidential candidate of the SDP highlighted three key challenges facing the Tinubu administration: the high cost of governance, subsidy concerns, and foreign exchange issues.
Adebayo acknowledged that the current government’s reforms offer certain advantages, such as increased government revenue and foreign exchange earnings. However, he pointed out that the country is not adequately prepared structurally to fully realize the promised benefits.
He said the gains of the policies were less to the pains, noting that the Tinubu government should be “less arrogant” to do the right thing to provide succor for suffering Nigerians.
It’s worth noting that Nigeria has grappled with rising inflation, particularly in food prices, a foreign exchange crisis, economic difficulties, and a high cost of living. These challenges have arisen due to the removal of petrol subsidies, leading to protests in various regions of the country.