NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
A civil society group, the Conscience of Yoruba Nation Group, has urged former President Olusegun Obasanjo to throw his weight behind President Tinubu.
According to the group, the president is already succeeding in his efforts to reposition the economy for the benefit of Nigerians.
Former President Obasanjo had wondered why “a Nigerian president” came into office with no plan of what he would do in that office.
Obasanjo, who said this in an interview aired by the News Central Television on Thursday, did not explicitly name the person he was attacking, although observers believed he was referring to President Bola Tinubu.
He said: “What do you say of a Nigerian president who came to office without a plan? And then he woke up and just said three-point plan. What are the three points? What are they going to achieve? Who are the people who have worked on it?
“You came and you just opened your mouth and made a pronouncement on something that has not been studied.”
Reacting in a statement signed by its convener, Mr Kole Omololu, the group said Tinubu’s economic reforms were achieving their objective of making the economy attractive for investment.
The group said Tinubu needed encouragement to do more and not uncomplimentary remarks from elder statesmen like Obasanjo.
The group faulted the former president, saying Tinubu’s plan was contained in his Renewed Hope Agenda.
It said, “President Tinubu had a plan and shared it with Nigerians before they convincingly elected him as their president. The Tinubu strategy was disseminated well during the 2023 electioneering. They included ending subsidies, floating the Naira, devolving power from the federal to the states and local governments and expanding education via student loans.”
It said Tinubu quickly set to work with his plan by implementing subsidy removal on the first day of his administration, floating the Naira within weeks and achieving local government autonomy through a pronouncement by the Supreme Court.
The group said: “Nigeria’s fuel imports have crashed and we are now consuming less than 50 percent of what we allegedly consumed before President Tinubu removed fuel subsidies. Due to price equalisation with neighbouring countries, the smuggling of cheap Nigerian fuel to other countries in the West African subregion has ended.
“Due to the floating of the Naira, we are now exporting more than we are importing. Nigeria set a record of $4.58 billion in non-oil exports in 2023, which was not just a record but a 28.04 percent increase on the previous year.
“We are set to break that record in 2024, as the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics revealed that by the half-year 2024, Nigeria had made $2.7 Billion in non-oil exports. This is already an H1 record.
“Nigeria is now at the point where Vietnam was, where devaluation has made exports more attractive and cost-effective, leading to the record ₦14.07 trillion trade surplus we achieved by half of 2024.”
It said Nigeria’s $1.4 billion total non-oil exports in 2016 were made in one quarter of 2024, noting that the country had turned its trade deficit into a positive balance.
It said: “In the first and second years of the Tinubu…
