Your economic policies suffocating Nigerians, Afenifere tells Tinubu

Pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere has charged President Bola Tinubu to review his economic policies as they have impoverished Nigerians.

Afenifere’s admonition was contained in a statement by its Publicity Secretary, Justice Faloye, issued on Wednesday.

Afenifere stated: “The economy has experienced severe turbulence in the one-year administration of President Bola Tinubu, worsening the previous administration’s economic legacy.

“Afenifere, hereby, calls for a better understanding of the economy to stop the alarming rate of inflation, devaluation, increasing unemployment, homelessness and poverty.

“Firstly, it is an illogical economic belief that the subsidy removals and tax increases that remove money from the economy will stimulate economic growth.

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“Therefore, the adoption of flawed neo-liberal theories of subsidy removal and unbridled tax increases must be stopped since they always contract the economy and ours is no exception as companies are folding up and leaving due to fuel and electricity costs skyrocketing, fuelling galloping inflation and fall of real incomes.

“These policies are crowding out the productive sectors of the economy from much-needed loans. The hikes in interest rates are not effective in curbing inflation for the twin reasons that whatever loans are withheld from the private sector by the restrictive policies are flowing to the government which is spending recklessly and pumping the same funds right back into the markets.

“The policy of floating the Naira without moderating the excesses of the free market speculators and hoarders, and a nation addicted to capital flight, is questionable economic logic. With 90 percent of our foreign exchange derived from oil and Gas, stopping government funding of the forex market was bound to lead to massive devaluation as witnessed. Our collective patrimony is not only meant to fund the political class but to stimulate the economy and abundance of life to the greatest number of citizens. This is the Afenifere standard of governance.

“The problems inherited from the Buhari administration have been compounded by the inept management of the economy by the Tinubu administration, following the example of their predecessor by spending recklessly while looking for loans and additional taxes to fund the profligacy.

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“Tinubu’s administration in Lagos State is credited for a hyped increasing Internally Generated Revenue that never translated into the development of the kind of infrastructure built by the Jakande administration.

“Unfortunately it appears that President Tinubu is still possessed by this mindset of taxing the poor to transfer to the privileged, especially cronies. We are being inundated with all sorts of hare-brained tax schemes like communication, cyber security taxes etc and even once toyed with mandating grossly underfunded universities to remit to the Government pursue a percent of their earnings.

“At the end of the first year of Tinubu’s administration, the question is whether our continued arrested economic development is due to corruption or incompetence.