President of Nigeria Bola Ahmed Tinubu in his first media chat spoke on topical issues that had dominated his 18- month administration raging from Tax Reform, Fuel Subsidy, his cabinet and corruption.
TAX REFORM
Unequivocally he said Tax Reform ” Is Here To Stay..The President insisted that the economy could not be revived with the “old broken book.”
President Bola Tinubu ssid that there “is no going back on the controversial tax reform my administration has recently introduced.”
“Tax reform is here to stay; we cannot just continue to do what we were doing years to years in today’s economy. We cannot retool this economy with the old broken books, and I believe I have that capacity that is why I went into the race,” Tinubu said.
“I am focused on what Nigeria needs and what I must do for Nigeria, it is not just going to be eldorado for everybody, but the new dawn is here, I am convinced, and you should be convinced.”
He has forwarded four tax reform bills to the National Assembly.
The proposed Tax Reform Bills have continued to generate a lot of controversies since its introduction at the National Assembly, meeting serious resistant especially from the Northern part of the country.
Following the controversies the bills have generated, the National Economic Council had advised President Bola Tinubu to withdrawal the bills to allow for further consultations, but he had refused and said that the bills should go through the necessary legislative processes.
PETROL SUBSIDY:
President Bola Tinubu said he had no regrets removing petrol subsidy in May 2023, insisting that Nigeria could not continue to be Father Christmas to neighbouring countries.
“I don’t have any regrets whatsoever in removing petrol subsidy. We are spending our future, we were just deceiving ourselves, that reform was necessary,”
Tinubu said petrol subsidy removal some 18 months ago had increased competition within the sector and that the pump price of petrol had gradually crashed. “The market is being saturated. No monopoly, no oligopoly, a free market economy flowing,” he said.
He said he did not believe in price control and he won’t go that path. “I don’t believe in price control, we will work hard to supply the market,” he said.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, faces energy challenges, with all its state-owned refineries non-operational. The country is heavily reliant on imported refined petroleum products, with the state-run NNPC being the major importer of the essential commodities.
Fuel queues are commonplace in the country. Prices of petrol soared since the removal of subsidy in May 2023, from around N200/litre to over N1,000/litre, compounding the woes of the citizens who power their vehicles, and generating sets with petrol, no thanks to decades-long epileptic electricity supply.
The government simultaneously unified forex windows, with the value of the naira nosediving terribly from $1/N700 to over $1/1600 at the parallel market. Prices of food and basic commodities immediately climbed through the roof as Nigerians battled attendant inflation.
HIS CABINET
President Bola Tinubu answering his critics who described his cabinet as “bloated” said he was not prepared to reduce the size of his 48-man cabinet.
“I am not prepared to bring down the size of my cabinet,” arguing that “efficiency” has been at the core of his selection of ministers
Tinubu appointed 48 ministers in August 2023, three months after his inauguration. The Senate immediately screened and confirmed the ministers. One of the ministers, Betta Edu, was suspended in January while another, Simon Lalong, moved to the Senate.
There were calls for the President to reshuffle his cabinet as many Nigerians have not been impressed by the performance of some of the ministers, especially in the face of unprecedented inflation, excruciating economic situation and rising insecurity.
In October 2024, Tinubu re-assigned 10 ministers to new ministerial portfolios and appointed seven new ministers for Senate confirmation. He also sacked five of his ministers but critics insist that the President’s cabinet remains large, especially with the creation of a Livestock Ministry with a minister.
ELECTRICITY BILL:
He advised Nigeria to live by the current charges. ” Switch off your light to manage electricity bill.
STAMPEDE
President Bola Tinubu said indiscipline and poor organization were responsible for recent stampedes in Oyo, Anambra states and Abuja where people died during distribution of palliatives.
He expressed the need for Nigerians to be more organised during such events.
“It is very sad that people are not well organised. We just have to be more disciplined in our society, condolences to those who lost a family member,”
He emphasized that it was good to give to the less privileged, Tinubu recalled that he had been doing charity for a long time but never experienced such incident because it was well organised.
“It is good to give, I have been giving out foodstuffs, commodities including envelopes for the last 25 years, I have never experienced this kind of incident because we are organised, disciplined. And if you know you don’t have enough to give, don’t attempt to even publicize it,” Tinubu said.
Many lost their lives and several others were wounded in multiple stampedes in Anambra and the FCT during the distribution of food items on Saturday, prompting the Inspector General of Police to ask organisers of similar charity works to carry security agencies along and ensure strict adherence to crowd and safety management protocols.
A few days before that Abuja and Anambra incidents, over 30 children lost their lives in a stampede during a children funfair in Ibadan, the state capital.
– Additional details from Channels tv
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