Tinubunomics And Our National Economy

Frankly speaking, seven months is too short a period to engage in any rigorous economic analysis but any policy statement made by a sitting President for a day can cause disaster for a nation including reverberating effects on the lives of the people. For now history will not be too harsh on Tinubu and his economic policies. However, what is clear is that the Tinubu Presidency has started on a wrong footing.

For years, we have been preaching the need to reduce the cost of governance and one sure way of achieving this is to cut down on key appointments. Now, the Tinubu administration has a huge cabinet of 48 Ministers and this has increased the cost of governance. The indication is that we are not practicing what we preach, a demonstration of the fact that all the arguments about cutting the cost of governance were made just to win elections and nothing else. This is heart wrenching.

It is evident that the 8 years of the Buhari administration were full of dangerous surgical experiments that left Nigeria mortally lacerated with the economy in the morgue. Inflation was high, the exchange rate of the currency dipped, the GDP plumented, out-of-school figures climbed to an unacceptable leve. Indeed, 90% of macroeconomic indices including Foreign Direct Investment paraded bad statistics. The closest Nigeria came to instability was the insecurity which saw the rise of insurgency, banditry and other variety of terrorism.

Recognizing this unedifying past, many Nigerians anticipated that the Tinubu administration will make policies to assuage the prevailing anomie in the body politic of the nation. So far, there is nothing to show that the present administration will chat a safer direction towards finding sulutions to the knotty economic problems facing the nation. Now, the Tinubu Presidency has devalued the currency. The rationale was to woo investors. However, this imperative has been nullified by the lack of electricity, good roads, healthcare delivery, security and other physical and social infrastructure.

Our yoke of debt overhang has increased and the borrowing spree has continued unabated. The fact that the 2024 budget will be funded by borrowed money speaks volume on how poor planning and executive recklessness has increased poverty in the country. Rather than attract investors, Nigeria has lost more than a dozen corporate entities to Ghana, Angola and South Africa.

A cross section of Nigerians are perplexed not because of the President's decision to remove subsidy on petroleum products but on why no palliative measure was put in place. Several car

Tinubunomics appears to be failing because the excruciating hardship ravaging the land is so fierce that even an increase in the minimum wage of civil servants cannot address the rising poverty and misery index in Nigeria.

From public commentaries and analyses, most Nigerians will be more comfortable with massive investment in Agriculture than running the same failed social investment programmes such as conditional cash transfer schemes. .

Tinubunomics is failing and there is a need to rethink the micro-conomic policies to put them to test before implementation. Nigeria's economy has been in the woods for upwards of 15 years and all hands must be on deck to reposition the economic for the greater good of the citizens.

Idumange is a public affairs analyst.