By Bolaji O. Akinyemi.
There were twists and turns during the electioneering campaign of Bola Ahmed Tinubu on what his foreign exchange policy would look like. Candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu was neither here nor there! At one time he confidently assured Nigerians of his ability to smack down Dollars and grip same down and count the wrestling match against inflation. Many were so sure Dollars was up for a disgrace. “I am not worried about the exchange rate”, the President said to a bemoaned crowd of supporters at one of his many campaigns, “because the salaries should be in Naira and they aren’t importers.
The President further said that perhaps it is a lesson for us to depend on our domestic product. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu saw the lesson but failed to teach it by living by example. Given the severity of the disgraceful outing of Naira against dollars I would have expected the President and his cabinet members along with members of the National Assembly to demonstrate the need for a new cultural spend of buying made in Nigeria. New fleets in all Government ministries, agencies, parastatals without excluding the Presidency should have by policy and circular to that effect been mandatory to be made in Nigeria.
The chicken however has come home to roost, earning salary in Naira has not insulated us against the falling value of Naira. The world is a global village and our village markets are now online unfortunately they are dollarised; Jumia, Ali Baba and the rest of them all shed their market on their kiosks dollars, our nairaland is only a news platform. What are the roadmaps of this Administration to create a global value for Naira in the new global village market?
This President is not solely responsible for where Naira found itself. Unfortunately howevrh it is his responsibility and of his team to solve the problem they saw but pretended about during the election.
The slide of Naira is not a yesterday thing. 1981 the minimum wage was ₦125, it’s equivalent in dollars was $195. By 1989/1990 the Babangida’s International Monetary Fund projection for the country and its attendant austerity measures had taken root. Minimum wage was then ₦250 equivalent in dollars was $31.
In 2019 Buhari was magnanimous to give Nigerian workers a minimum take home of ₦30,000 but unfortunately that much of pay only equals $20.
We must not forget that our growing culture of appetite for foreign products coupled with the monster of corruption supervising our government and social lifestyle are jointly responsible for the fate of Naira and its fake exchange rate that is not responding to mouth service in regards to seeing the naira up. Whatever was done to bring the Naira to where it is, is what we have to undo to take the Naira back. As at 1981 all fleets in the Government pool were either Peugeot from Kaduna or Volkswagen from Lagos. Check the Presidential, Governors or and Government Officials, down to the Counselor of your Ward, you won’t dare to ask why is naira so feeble.
President Tinubu knows this and should stop pretending. All Nigerians must take responsibility for their actions that are weakening the Naira.
Let me remind President Tinubu, all his aides and spokespersons without leaving out myself and all Nigerians that, we know the truth and should stop shying away from it!
By the 1st day of February 2023, we were reading the fall out of the last week of January 2023, jabs of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign council in the media, which says Bola Tinubu, its presidential candidate, did not attack President Muhammadu Buhari when he spoke about the country’s exchange rate!
Speaking at a rally held at the UJ Esuene Stadium in Calabar, Cross River’s capital, Tinubu said the Buhari administration met the naira/dollar exchange rate at N200 to a dollar but it has depreciated to about N800/dollar at the parallel market!
In a statement, Bayo Onanuga, the APC Campaign media director said the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) created the current exchange rate crisis experienced by the country.
Without attempting to save the face of PDP and its “Bad Luck of a leader”; clueless as he was often called, left the exchange rate at a dollar to 200 naira and created dynamics of the depreciation that became untameable by “clue fool” Buhari!
Onanuga went further; “Buhari has been able to build back the reserve to about $38 billion”. Do we need to remind Onanuga and his co-travellers in our propaganda ship that after 8 years of Buhari’s plunging of our economy into the abyss!
The PDP years no longer suffice as an excuse for a Government that had two successive tenures. If Buhari’s first tenure was premised on Jonathan’s misadventure in power, APC should take responsibility for the 2nd tenure that should flourish on the efforts of his first tenure!
But Buhari did nothing in his first tenure and worse in his 2nd tenure!
Defending BAT against Buhari, Onanuga said “The reference to exchange rate was not in any way an attack on the Muhammadu Buhari-led All Progressives Congress administration, but an attempt to capture how the economic mismanagement of the PDP created a forex crisis in the country since 2015,” he said.
“Anyone who followed the entire sequence and context of what Asiwaju said at the rally in Calabar will know he directed his missiles against PDP and Atiku.
“Let’s not forget, the PDP left the forex reserve at $28 billion by May 2015, when Buhari took over despite unprecedented revenue from crude oil.
“The futile attempt to misrepresent Asiwaju Tinubu by the mischievous PDP media did not detract from his central message!
“Our candidate explicitly said the people should not follow PDP and Atiku because they don’t know the road!
“Asiwaju Tinubu could not have meant that President Buhari does not know the road, having celebrated numerous times, the achievements of the Buhari administration”.
Tinubu had also said at campaign fora he would build on the Buhari achievements, when elected on 25 February.”
Now that we have followed BAT who knows the road and promised to continue where Buhari stops, I don’t get it when we are taken back to where we left PDP for APC!
Let me leave my readers with the question; Is there something about that juncture in our past where we gave leadership to APC that we need to go back to re-address?
Dr Bolaji O. Akinyemi is an Apostle and Nation Builder. He’s also President Voice of His Word Ministries and Convener Apostolic Round Table.
email:bolajiakinyemi66@gmail.com
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