A Professor of Social Ethics at Boston University, Nimi Wariboko, has stated that President Bola Tinubu has yet to generate any results that demonstrate that he came equipped for office.
The author and investment banker stated this yesterday “Eight months into a government system is too long not to have a plan”.
He noted that the President, who won the February 2023 presidential election on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has no plan in place to mitigate the economic impact of the elimination of petrol subsidies and other measures.
Wariboko criticized the present administration’s measures as “knee-jerk reactions,” saying that the government lacked vision.
He said, “There’s no point complaining about (ex-President Muhammadu) Buhari. There’s no point complaining about the goodness or the expectation of Buhari. Now, the ball is in his (Tinubu’s) court and he has to do it because he said it was his turn.
“People keep saying he was prepared; he’s been a politician but the test of everything is the result we are seeing and I don’t think we have seen any results so far that would justify that accolade being heaped upon him.
“The Bible says: If your strength fails you on the day of adversity. it is small. I always tell people that: If your strength fails you on the day of adversity, it was not there. It’s a simple case; we are not seeing the result, we are not even seeing a clear vision of where the country is going.”
Nigeria is dealing with rising inflation, food inflation, a currency crisis, economic hardship, and a high cost of living as a result of the elimination of petrol subsidies, which has sparked protests in some parts of the country.
The Nigerian naira has fallen in the last nine months, since the Tinubu administration closed the foreign currency window. The naira reached an all-time low, plummeting from around N700/$1 last May to more over N1500/$1 today.
Similarly, the price per litre of Premium Motor Spirit, better known as petrol, has risen by more than 350%, from N184 last May to more than N600 today, depending on location.
The country’s shaky economy has alarmed economists, opposition parties, labour unions, and civil society organisations, who continue to call on the Tinubu administration to keep its campaign promises. The federal government has implemented some measures in recent weeks, but Nigerians continue to bear the burden of a high cost of living.
