A former Governor of Benue State, Gabriel Suswam, has said that the President Bola Tinubu-led Federal Government lacks the requirements to change Nigeria’s economic fortunes.
Suswam, also the lawmaker who represented Benue North-East Senatorial District in the 9th National Assembly, stated this when he appeared as a guest on Channels Television’s Newsnight programme earlier in the week.
According to Suswam, all the economic policies introduced by the incumbent administration have clearly indicated that the government cannot solve the country’s economic problems.
He said, “Well, it’s rather unfortunate, right from the Buhari Government, where the mantra of ‘Change’ was the singsong. Unfortunately, people didn’t ask what kind of change he was bringing to governance. Is it a positive change or a negative change?
“What we experienced under those eight years was what dovetailed into what we’re experiencing today because whatever foundation was built by the PDP was completely destroyed by that (Buhari) government.
“We now began a journey to the abyss. The state of the nation, economically, is nothing to talk about, it’s unfortunate that the current (Tinubu) leadership does not have what it takes to change the economic fortunes of this country.
“All the economic policies that they’ve engaged in or taken clearly indicate that they can’t solve the economic problems of this country.”
The former governor cited the example of fuel subsidy removal. “I give you some examples, you remove subsidy from day one, you now float your currency, and you increase the interest rate. Now the tariff for electricity has been increased.
“How does an average man survive under those kinds of heavy, bad economic policies? First, subsidy itself is a problem, it affects the cost of transportation, and production, because you’re dealing with energy, and now that has been removed. So, the person who is selling foodstuffs, who now transporting them maybe from inside Abuja at the cost of N5,000, now has to transport them at the cost of N15,000. Where do you think the cost will end? To the consumer. So, inflation in this country is at 31 per cent. It is unheard of!
“Now, look at the floating of the currency. No developing economy has floated their currency that has gotten out of it. Is it the Latin Americans? They have not. In the 80s and early 90s, most of the problems of Latin American countries was the fact that they took very bad economic policies, such as this current government is taking — floating of the currency, removal of subsidies here and there,” he said.
Suswam also alleged that most of Tinubu’s cabinet members lack the capacity to hold offices, adding that their inefficiency is why there are a lot of excuses
He said, “If you give me an assignment and I have no capacity, I will begin to give excuses. That is what is happening, it’s a lack of capacity because most of the people put in place as ministers are people who lack the capacity to hold those offices. One would have believed that the President, with the kind of people he selected in Lagos, would do the same in terms of getting people who understood what they were doing.
“Unfortunately, maybe it’s a larger environment, and so it’s different. When you have lieutenants who themselves have no value to add, then there’s a problem with that. They have no value, so that is why most of these policies are being taken. I’ve looked at the budget, for instance. You have a budget that you know is basically not implementable ab initio, so how are we going to move forward because you have a deficit of close to N9 trillion right now? You have financing items for that deficit, which themselves will not be realisable.
“So, you can add that to the deficit because when you say that you will sell government assets to finance the budget,. Since 2019, when I was in the Senate, that has been a reoccurring decimal, year in, year out, they sell government assets to finance the deficit. You can’t realise anything that way.
“No, when you have a deficit of over 9 trillion naira, your financing item for that budget is that you are going to borrow money, both internally and externally. Borrowing money internally means that they will continue to print money, as the Buhari government was doing. No matter what you try, (the value of your currency will continue to depreciate once you are printing money. Not only that, you’ve gone ahead and increased the electricity tariff. What are the manufacturers going to do?
“Yes, they can pay that tariff but transfer it directly to the consumers. What is the earning capacity of an average Nigerian? So, your electricity cost alone is about 10 times more than the minimum wage of an average worker in this country.
“How is the country going to operate? These are some of the issues that we have that worry the PDP, and we believe that what we’ve done in the last 16 years, where at least we have a middle class in this country, has been wiped over completely. Now, we want to come back as a government under the PDP so that we can bring back those good old days, and we can do it. PDP has the resources to do that.”