Prince Adewole Adebayo was the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party in the 2023 general elections. In this interview, he speaks on the effects of fuel subsidy removal and unification of the exchange rate on Nigerians. Given the biting effects of the increase in fuel pump price due to the removal of subsidy, would you still label those criticising the removal of subsidy hypocrites?
There are two types of people who criticise the subsidy removal. Some of them are hypocrites and some are consistent. Those who criticise subsidy removal like me and other people, have grounds. But those who supported anyone, any platform that said they would remove subsidies from day one are hypocritical. Once you agreed to throw a five-year-old child from 10 floors of a building, you cannot say I am surprised the child broke his limbs. There is no way you will implement the policy they are implementing now that you are not going to have the same consequences. Economics does not admit cheating. You can cheat in politics, you can inflate your numbers in politics, but when it comes to economics, you can’t. You have to take the right policies. If you don’t take the right policies, the consequences of the wrong policies will follow.
What steps do you recommend as the government is also taking steps about palliatives? First, we should stop misusing the word palliative. Policy watchers shouldn’t behave as if they didn’t know what was in the offing. It appears the government is not aware of what we call monetary neutrality. When you have no food, you have no means of transportation, when you have no medicare, throwing money at you is not going to increase the number of service providers, is not going to increase the value of real goods in the market. What it is going to do is that there would be wastage; the money will not be well used. When the money gets to the end user, it is useless to them in real terms because it does not have goods to chase with the money. In the end, it may cause a little bit of inflation.
Are you saying the policy by the Tinubu administration of unification of the foreign exchange market and removal of the fuel subsidy is to help the friends of the government? I am not saying it pejoratively. In economics, everything is about choice. There are many alternative routes to development. Nigeria is a resource-rich country. I am not saying that because of the number, I am saying it because of the quality of people we have. Nigeria is rich in manpower. I think it is not too late for the government, starting with President Tinubu and co, to rethink and have a backup plan because I have a feeling and I am saying it with every sense of responsibility that if they go the way they are going, they will fail woefully. Not because they hate the people but because they are adopting models that never worked. It will surprise even President Tinubu that in the past two months, more people have entered into poverty and are yet to succeed in lifting five people out of poverty. The measures they are taking now will not help the economy. Subsidy is one out of about 2000 government programmes that require spending government money.
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