Vice-President Kashim Shettima has declared that the present government will not point fingers at former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration for the difficulties it faced upon assuming office.
At the second Chronicle Roundtable, hosted by the 21st Century Chronicle, the Vice-President acknowledged that this is a particularly challenging period to hold political office in Nigeria due to the nation’s current issues.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, he said, opted for a tough solution for the nation rather than a temporary fix. “The president selected the path that would safeguard the populace rather than prolonging economic decline. We won’t resort to blaming the previous administration as leadership is about bravery and continuity.”
He noted that before their tenure, the major issue was the removal of fuel subsidy, which had been a burden on the nation for the past two to three decades. The lack of sufficient budget for it in the fiscal year was understood as the reason for our predecessor’s decision to remove the subsidy.
He revealed that a year before they assumed office, Nigeria’s debt service to revenue ratio had escalated to 111.18 percent, which was tantamount to an economic death sentence. He explained, “Our debt service was such that if you earned N100,000, you were compelled to borrow an additional N11,800 to repay the debt. How do we plan to survive this? It won’t be long before we are ostracized.”
He further added that the subsidy had resulted in the diversion of resources from vital sectors and was riddled with corruption orchestrated by the subsidy regime. “We had to abandon the subsidy regime; it was a hard pill to swallow, but it was necessary.”
Regarding the economic reforms they are implementing, he said, “A presidential candidate in the previous election, eager to ridicule our economic path, once cited Argentina as a model for Nigeria and became an instant market expert. He was convinced that we had lost our way and should have followed the path of our friends in South America.
“Just two weeks later, we observed as Argentina’s inflation rate skyrocketed. We respect what the president is doing there, but governance is not about copying.”
He credited the intervention of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the National Security Adviser (NSA) in neutralizing influential currency manipulators who had conspired to undermine its reforms, leading to the stabilization of the Naira.
“Today, I am proud to say that our intervention has achieved the desired results. Naira speculators were predicting that the Naira would depreciate to as much as N5,000 to the dollar. Some even purchased the dollar at a rate of N2,000 from banks.
Dr. Shamsudeen Usman, the Chairman of the event, spoke earlier, emphasizing that the government needs to improve the economic situation as there are many who do not wish the country well.
