The Pan Nigerian socio-political organisation, Afenifere, has said that it is not in agreement with the Presidency?s recent claim on economic turnaround, noting that such an assertion is just a media spin.

In a press statement from Afenifere to the media signed by its leader, HRH Oba Oladipo Olaitan, and the National Publicity Secretary, Prince Justice Faloye, the group dismissed the claim, saying it is a distortion of reality on the ground.

Afenifere mentioned the claim which was contained in the President?s October 1 Independence Day speech, in addition to the economic review by some experts which indicated otherwise, but maintained that such a claim is challengeable.

The group said the claim that the economy has stabilised is a euphemism, noting that the situation has reached rock bottom after being pushed off the cliff with subsidy removal and devaluation policies.

It stated: ?When a $10 billion subsidy with $200 billion production multiplier effects is removed, when the economy falls by $200 billion, it would stop falling. Now that the GDP has fallen over 50% from $477.8 billion in 2022 to now $187.8 billion, we are being told on Independence Day to celebrate a 4.23% growth.

Afenifere queried what could have happened to the over seven million businesses that collapsed and others pushed into poverty, asking if they are just collateral damage of self-induced economic destabilisation mislabelled as economic reforms.

?The fall of real wages by 300% makes claims of an economic turnaround unfounded. While a select few elites might take advantage of the devaluation, the average Nigerian worker?s purchasing power has been wiped out by devaluation and inflation, and until the majority get their wages adjusted, there can be no turnaround.

?The administration?s increase in minimum wage to N70,000 benefited less than 5% of workers. The Nigerian worker has been economically reformed to slave wages, with even those at the pinnacle of academia and the armed forces paid peanuts. A professor is paid less than unemployed persons in Europe and the Americas, while the basic wages of army generals just about equal the amount paid to unemployed people,? Afenifere stated.

In addition, Afenifere also faulted the foreign reserves claim, calling it a net increase in debt. ?The President reported a less than $10 billion increase of the average $35 billion foreign reserves to $42 billion but omitted the fact that our foreign debt had increased from 2022/2023 levels.

?The credit of becoming net exporters with a better balance of payments is not tied to this administration?s subsidy removals and devaluation butto previous governments? backing of the Dangote Refinery, whose operation has now drastically reduced the importation of petrol products that accounted for 30% of our import bill and now exports petrol. But nevertheless, we welcome President Tinubu?s administration?s focus on increased non-oil exports,? it added.

The group also talked about increasing the tax burden, noting that the Tinubu administration boasts of increasing the tax-to-GDP ratio by 3.5% of a GDP that fell from $477.8 billion in 2022 to now $187.8 billion, which, according to them, is ridiculous.

Afenifere said that the government should desist from increasing the tax burden on Nigerians already economically strangled with its economic policies.

?This is not the time to reinstate the fuel tax that was initially instituted in 2007 but shelved due to its predicted negative effect on our economy, which was several times in a better state than now. With an income tax minimum threshold of N800,000 per annum, which is less than the N840,000 minimum wage per annum, everyone will be paying more taxes, especially the indirect taxes of fuel tax, bank charges, telecoms, etc. We implore the government to let the poor breathe.

?The government is in power to serve the people, not the dictates of local and international financial institutions, whose trickle-down economics is based on the masses picking up crumbs from under the tables of the rich businessmen and political jobbers. The Western nations where trickle-down economics evolved in the eighties have lost their global economic strength to China, which invested in people and infrastructure, just as Nigeria and other African nations have witnessed increasing poverty compared to Asian nations.

?There are well over 3 million university students, with less than one-sixth funded by NELFUND, according to the president. Afenifere disagrees with the concept of student loans in a country where over 50%, over 100 million people, are multidimensionally poor. The poor should be empowered, not handed over to loan systems for education and survival. The shifting of educational funding to private sector mechanisms will also have a detrimental effect on the development of education infrastructure for our teeming youth population, and we would like to know how many new tertiary institutions have been built under this administration,? Afenifere stated.

Stressing further, the group touched on unemployment rates stemming from misplaced priorities: ?It is indicative of our political leadership being apathetic to the needs of the masses when it promises to tackle unemployment through agriculture, which already provides the largest employment but with non-living wages below international poverty lines. Rather than push more people into a sector with depressed wages, the government needs to invest in education and infrastructure for better jobs and wages and national development. Like in China, the USA and other postwar European nations, massive public infrastructure development, especially in housing and railways, was used to drain excess labour in agriculture, which led to improved wages and mechanised farming.

?Instead of focusing on increasing taxes, withdrawing production subsidies, awarding fancy contracts and fiddling with employment and other national statistics, Nigeria needs real quantifiable development goals. For example, the government can?t truly claim to be pro-people by budgeting for a mere 20,000 homes for the year 2025, when, in addition to the already 30 million homeless, our population will increase by at least 5 million in 2025.

?The government?s claim of increasing our railways by 40% is deceptive and disguises the tokenism towards real development. The 40% is based on the recent 600 kilometres of standard gauge, not our total railway length of 4200 kilometres. Moreover, the 287-kilometre Kaduna-Kano-Maradi Railway is based on political tokenism, not economic efficiency. Railways have the highest multiplier effect, whose effect boosts most economic sectors. It will reduce the 40% wastage of our agricultural output and be a springboard for heavy manufacturing. This is why the key indices flaunted by seriously developing nations are how many houses are built a day and how many kilometres of rail are laid a day,? It added.

The group, however, implores the government to repair the damage to people?s livelihoods caused by its economic policies and take economic development seriously, instead of playing to the media gallery. ?Millions of lives are at stake. Every student deserves education, every person needs access to healthcare, every family needs a home, and every local government needs a railway station. There can be no economic recovery until the majority are well fed, housed, and transported, and there is near full employment,? concluded Afenifere. (Vanguard)

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