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The Presidency has hit again at what it referred to as the “predetermined, reductionist, derogatory, and denigrating” approach overseas media shops have reported on the nation’s present financial state of affairs beneath the administration of President Bola Tinubu.
In a strongly-worded rejoinder, Particular Adviser to President Tinubu on Info and Technique, Bayo Onanuga, slammed a latest function story by The New York Instances titled ‘Nigeria Confronts Its Worst Financial Disaster in a Era’ as a “jaundiced” account that displays a typical detrimental bias in opposition to African nations.
Onanuga accused the NYT report of portray a very gloomy image primarily based on interviews depicting the dire experiences of some Nigerians amid final yr’s inflationary spiral, whereas failing to say the optimistic features and ameliorative insurance policies being carried out by the federal government.
“The report is at greatest jaundiced, all gloom and doom, because it by no means talked about the optimistic features in the identical economic system in addition to the ameliorative insurance policies being carried out by the central and state governments,” Onanuga acknowledged.
The presidential aide confused that Tinubu didn’t create Nigeria’s financial troubles however inherited them, likening it to a “lifeless economic system” that required pressing interventions to forestall complete collapse.
He defended the federal government’s choice in Might/June 2023 to abolish the gasoline subsidy regime that had value $84.39 billion between 2005 and 2022, in addition to the unification of a number of change charges – strikes he stated had been essential to revive fiscal self-discipline and appeal to funding.
“For many years, Nigeria had maintained a gasoline subsidy regime that gulped $84.39 billion from the general public treasury in a rustic with large infrastructural deficits and in excessive want of higher social companies for its residents,” Onanuga stated.
He added that by protecting the naira overvalued in opposition to the greenback, the earlier authorities had allowed arbitrage alternatives that enabled round-tripping whereas failing to satisfy remittance obligations, drying up overseas direct funding.
In response to Onanuga, whereas the preliminary financial shocks had been turbulent, with the naira depreciating to N1,900 per greenback, stability is being restored steadily and the forex might get better to N1,000-N1,200 by the of the yr.
He cited growing overseas portfolio funding, a Q1 2024 commerce surplus of N6.52 trillion, recent loans from multilateral lenders, and multi-billion greenback funding commitments as indicators of renewed investor confidence stemming from the reforms.
The presidency acknowledged that meals inflation stays a key problem, however stated the federal government is implementing insurance policies to spice up home agricultural manufacturing, together with fertilizer subsidies, incentives for dry season farming, and state-level interventions.
“With all of the plans being executed, inflation, particularly meals inflation, will quickly be tamed,” Onanuga asserted.
He argued that whereas Nigeria will not be alone in dealing with a cost-of-living disaster, which has additionally hit Western nations just like the U.S., the Tinubu administration is working onerous to show across the financial woes, expressing confidence that “we will overcome our current difficulties very quickly.”
In his parting shot, the presidential aide acknowledged, “Our nation confronted financial difficulties up to now. Identical to we overcame then, we will overcome our current difficulties very quickly.”