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SDP Ex-Presidential Candidate, Adebayo Scores Tinubu’s Economic Team Low

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By Mike Odiakose, Abuja

Former presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Prince Adewole Adebayo, has scored President Bola Tinubu’s economic team low, saying they are “uncoordinated.

Adebayo also came down hard on the Minister of Finance for saying that the economy was doing good amidst heavy external borrowing.

Adebayo told an online newspaper in an interview that the President Tinubu government is suffering from economic illiteracy.

He said, “I always wish there will be a good day for Nigeria, but it is not a good day when the finance minister believes the day he goes borrowing in London is a good day.

“How can it be a good day when Nigeria goes overseas to give investments in the capital market from the excess production that we have? 

“No minister that we had in the past would say the day we went borrowing was a good day.

When told that even advanced countries like America also borrow, he had this to say: “America borrows from within. You borrow from your own currency. I am not quarreling with them borrowing from the currency they issued. 

“When you are borrowing Euro bonds, borrowing currency from other people in other capitals of the world, it’s a sign of crisis.

“Yes, you can do it but you don’t say it’s a good day for you. If you are anaemic and your neighbour comes to donate blood to you, you should be grateful but you don’t say that’s the best day of your life, because you are not supposed to be anaemic in the first place.

“They need to run the economy in such a way that we can generate capital for ourselves. 

“Fundamentally, I think they are uncoordinated. Even though he is supposed to be the coordinator of the economy, he is not coordinated.

“The thinking isn’t coordinated but if they coordinate well and work with us as a population, we should be able to generate wealth for the country.

“The parameters are a bit basic and elementary. Even in those basic elementary parameters, they are not sincere about them. They don’t want to meet them because they are not realistic,” Adebayo said. 

“The exchange rate they fixed is unrealistic.

“Given the other measures they have taken, I think it is the lack of coordination that concerns me. I wish that Tinubu’s 2025 budget works.

“I want them to succeed. I want investors to come to Nigeria. I plead with anyone to have confidence in the economy of Nigeria. That is my desire, even though I am in the opposition. 

“However, they are self contradictory as these contradictions would at the end of the day prove themselves.

“For example, in their mind, if they are able to succeed, they are working towards 15 percent inflation, but any basic micro-economist knows that you must never have double digit inflation.

“It is one thing to have a high BP, and the doctor tells you he will only give you medium BP; the doctor wants to kill you because his job is to return your BP to normal. The objective they set, even if they succeed, is a failure on its own,” he further stated.

He noted that, “I saw the minister and I heard him and I understood his philosophy. I am not against him in person. I like him as a finance person who can manage your assets, like a merchant banker.

“There are two things you need to do with the type of our size of development. First is the fiscal and budgetary housekeeping. The government budgets for itself in the first part of the budget.

“Then, the second part of the budget signals to the rest of the economy and creates a stimulus for areas they want to emphasize, and then uses other incentives to encourage others to do investments. They are sending wrong signals.

“First, in their own housekeeping, they are wrong in the way they are going about it. You can never say to anybody, especially somebody that understands basic microeconomics that your inflation rates cannot be lower than your unemployment rate. You can do it.

“You have already got it upside down. If you have a 15 percent inflation rate, definitely, your unemployment cannot go below 15 percent because of the way you run the economy.

If you listen to the gentleman again, he painstakingly celebrated the idea that they have 25 million households that they are trying to give little money to.

“Why don’t you have 25 million households from whom you are going to give employment? 

So, you have a social register for people you want to give money but you don’t have a register of unemployed people that you can give jobs to. What sense does it make?

“The idea that you are going to imagine manufacturing by thinking that if you give N50,000 to any enterprise, whether small, medium or micro, is invisible; N50,000? If the person comes to your office to collect the money, he will spend about that on transportation.

“If you say you want to grow the economy by bringing investors, don’t you understand that borrowing money in the bank is just one of the factors of production?

“Loan capital, for example, won’t you realize that there are other paper expenditures like labour cost, infrastructure cost, and other costs. If you are driving those costs above sustainability, there is no way you can generate employment or capital in the economy.”

Responding to questions on INEC chairman’s claim of Ghana learning from Nigeria he said: “Yes, they took a lot of lessons not to be like Nigeria. That is what it can mean logically because the INEC chairman is a professor; he must be speaking in some sound way because what Ghana has done is exactly the opposite of what we did.

“They tried to make their own credible. We tried to make ours not credible even though we invested more in terms of technology, and quality of manpower.

“You don’t go to other countries and find professor emeritus, dean of faculties, and vice chancellors coming to be returning officers,” Adebayo added.

On the push for rotational presidency, the ex-presidential candidate said, “Rotation is at two levels. You must rotate according to the geopolitical zone for peace to reign among the elite. But you must rotate from the elite to the people for growth and justice to happen in Nigeria.

“If you are rotating from North to South and all of that and rotating about the same wasteful elite who have no idea, you will be rotating poverty, insecurity and others.

“But if you rotate inter generationally from the old people to the young ones and ideologically from those who follow the International Monetary Fund (IMF)-World Bank to those who have indigenous ideas, authentic and pro Nigeria ideas, you would have some progress for the country.”

POLITICS

Ozekhome Kicks Against Creation of Additional States

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By Mike Odiakose, Abuja

Constitutional and human rights lawyer, Prof Mike Ozekhome, SAN, has kicked against the agitation for the creation of additional states.The legal luminary maintained that most of the states that make up the Federal Republic of Nigeria, today are not viable and as such saw no reason why more states should be created in the country.

Ozekhome, in an interview, blamed the conditions of the states on the “skewed federal template” being operated in form of a unitary system of government and called for a complete overhaul of the 1999 Constitution.
According to him, the present Constitution is not only cumbersome with the center vested with too much powers and responsibilities but was a product of the military class which has ruled Nigeria for quite some times.
He spoke at a “Walk for Wellness” campaign embarked upon by the Mike Ozekhome Chambers (MOC) in Abuja.”Some of us are now saying rather than create more states we should collapse the present structure into about six geopolitical zones, which should serve as regional government.”A parliamentary system of government operating on regional bases will be more beneficial to the people because it will catalyze development and competitiveness among the regions. Right now, no state is competing, all of them just go to Abuja at the end of the month to take from the federation account to share”, he said.The senior lawyer lamented that Nigeria has become a sharing country which is not baking anything because they don’t care or even know how to bake anything.According to him, while Nasarawa has the highest mineral deposits of over 36 items, followed by Plateau with 28 items with Sokoto and Kaduna States in that order, the entire country still rely on crude oil “which is fast losing its value across the world.”I will suggest that if we are to retain the state structure, we should retain the states as a federating units, thus having two tiers of government” he said, leaving local government to the states.Adding: “the only state I will have said should be created right now should be in the South East, to bring them to equity with other geopolitical zones in the country.”

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POLITICS

2027: APC Kicks As Opposition Backs Single Day Polls 

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A major political storm is brewing over a fresh proposal to amend the 1999 Constitution to allow all elections in Nigeria to be conducted on the same day in 2027.

While leading opposition parties — the Peoples Democratic Party, Labour Party, African Democratic Congress, and New Nigeria People’s Party — have thrown their weight behind the move, the ruling All Progressives Congress has rejected it, warning of dire consequences.

The proposal, spearheaded by the House of Representatives Committee on Constitution Review, chaired by Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu, is being considered as part of broader constitutional amendments following zonal consultations across the six geo-political zones.

If passed, the amendment would mandate the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct presidential, governorship, National Assembly, and state assembly polls in a single day — a move touted to drastically cut costs and reduce post-election bandwagon effects.

Backing the initiative, the National Publicity Secretary of the NNPP, Ladipo Johnson, argued that same-day polls would be both cost-effective and efficient.

He said, “The costs of elections are too high, just like those of governance. And any reasonable thing to reduce the costs should be looked at. Even for the political parties, it is cheaper and more efficient for them to do their elections in one day.”

On concerns over rigging, Johnson dismissed fears, saying, “If these people are going to rig, they will rig. But if you have all your elections in one day, all your candidates are able to pool together resources so that the polling unit is properly manned.”

The Labour Party also gave its full backing. National Publicity Secretary, Obiora Ifoh, said the proposal would eliminate staggered elections and reduce bandwagon effects.

He noted, “The Labour Party aligns itself with the position that all elections should hold the same day… It’s also going to help reduce the cost of funding elections, logistics, and bandwagon effect where some voters, after knowing who wins the presidential poll, will start moving towards that direction in subsequent elections.”

For the PDP, Deputy National Youth Leader, Timothy Osadolor, welcomed the idea but warned against manipulation.

“It is a welcome development if it is done with sincerity, clear intent and purpose. The truth is that the bogus amount that the government spends on elections is mind-boggling. There’s no rational reason why we spend over $350 billion conducting elections in this country, where at the end of the day, you don’t get value for the outcome of such votes,” he said.

The ADC, through its National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, also declared support but with a caveat.

“Our support for doing the election on the same day is contingent on INEC logistics being top notch. At the moment, we don’t see any evidence that INEC is committed to improving its logistics,” he said.

But not all stakeholders are convinced. The All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) warned that the logistics could be chaotic.

APGA spokesman, Ejimofor Okpara, declared that “As laudable as it sounds, we believe it will be chaotic. Our elections, as they are, already appear too cumbersome, logistics-wise, for INEC. One can only imagine the outlook if these major elections are held in one day.”

Lawmakers are also split. North-West caucus leader, Sada Soli (APC, Katsina), backed the bill, describing it as “an idea whose time has come.”

But Osun lawmaker, Oluwole Oke, disagreed, insisting, “It’s INEC’s prerogative to decide which date to conduct elections.”

Lagos lawmaker, Babajimi Benson, added, “I strongly believe that this decision should be included only in the INEC Act so as to make amendments easy… This (proposed) amendment in the constitution may make it very difficult in the future.”

The APC formally opposed the proposal, describing staggered elections as the better option.

Deputy National Organising Secretary, Nze Chidi Duru, warned, “To hold all elections on the same day puts a lot of pressure on the institution that is governing elections in Nigeria.

“You’re going to be holding elections at the State Assembly, House of Reps, Senate, governors, and the President. After those four years, INEC now sits back and literally does nothing.”

He added that staggered polls would keep INEC “active year-round” and reduce the risk of system collapse.

Also reacting, a former Director of Voter Education at INEC, Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi, condemned the plan, recalling that a similar attempt in 2003 was rejected by the courts.

“This is not a new idea. They tried this before when we were in INEC, and we actually went to court before the 2002 and 2003 elections. We won the case then,” he said, warning that Nigeria lacked the logistics and literacy levels required for such an exercise.

However, prominent lawyers see merit in the idea.

Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Lekan Ojo, argued: “From the economic perspective, it is a cost-saving measure… But it may be very clumsy. The electoral officers may be overwhelmed and that may lead to a floodgate of litigations.”

Another SAN, Wale Balogun, was more sceptical: “If our experience is anything to go by, then I’m afraid for Nigeria. I don’t think we have the capacity to do so.”

For Adedayo Adedeji (SAN), the move would “drastically reduce the cost of conducting elections,” though he warned of doubts over INEC’s capacity.

Civil society leaders, including Auwal Musa Rafsanjani of the Transition Monitoring Group and Debo Adeniran of the Centre for Accountability and Open Leadership, endorsed the proposal, insisting it would cut costs and make elections more transparent.

Adeniran said, “There is nothing stopping us from conducting all the elections in one day, except for those who are thinking of how to manipulate elections.”

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POLITICS

2027: No Vacancy in Aso Rock – APC Chairman 

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The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Prof. Nentawe Yilwatda has said he is very confident that the opposition parties including the African Democratic Congress (ADC) will fail in their bid to unseat President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the forthcoming 2027 election.

Yilwatda who was addressing hundreds of supporters of the ruling party under the aegis of the APC league of Professionals, who were on a solidarity visit at the national secretariat of the party on Tuesday in Abuja, said the gains recorded already under the Renewed Hope Agenda of the President Tinubu led administration as basis for his position.

He further assured that the party would ensure that the entire candidates of the party contesting for governorship, National and State Assemblies seats across the country were victorious.

The Plateau state born academic who described himself as the bridge between the old and the young gave example with the students loan, and several other empowerment programmes being undertaken by the President Tinubu led administration that has impacted on the lives of Nigerians positively.

“The child of the poorest man in Nigeria can now go to school to the peak without borrowing from anywhere. The government has made provision for that. This is the only time we’ve had that in the history of Nigeria. Government has dropped N1.5 billion Naira in Bank of Agriculture (BOA) to support young men that want to go into agriculture.

“Never before, never before, never before have we had this opportunity. We have the youths fund being given for the youths. Never before has any government done this. And I can tell you that the opportunity for the young people is right under our President.

What I can show you first is a thank you for this support, a thank you for standing by our party, a thank you for believing in this party.

“Our manifesto targets people like you. The Renew Hope Agenda targets people like you. And I look forward to working with you to ensure that 2027 will deliver the President, will deliver the Governors, will deliver the Senators, House of Assemblies and House of Representatives members.”

Earlier in his address, leader of the group and the pioneer Secretary of the Bayelsa state chapter of the APC, Hon. Marlin Daniel said was confident that Prof. Yilwatda will take the party to the next level of development.

Daniel also expressed gratitude to President Tinubu and the Sen. Hope Uzodinma led Progressives Governors Forum (PGF) over the choice of Yilwatda as the National Chairman of the party.

He expressed optimism that the Chairman will deliver candidates of the party at the coming elections given his experience as a technocrat and politician of several years standing.

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