Iliyasu Gadu ilgad2009@gmail.com 08035355706 (Texts only)
I do not envy Dele Alake the Honourable Minister of Solid Minerals Development his latest job as Director, Policy and Manifesto Development in the APC 2027 Campaign. Apparently Alake is being pressed to service to relieve the beleguered Presidential Media team led by Bayo Onanuga who have proven to be so out of depth at their collective task in burnishing the image of the President Tinubu administration to Nigerians and indeed the
world.
It is hoped that Alake who served as Commissioner for Information and Strategy in Lagos under the tenure of President Tinubu as Governor of Lagos state and did so well at that, would perhaps help in replicating what he did in Lagos to President Tinubu’s 2027 re-election bid.
But from his maiden interaction with the media on this latest job, it appears that Alake is likely to step on the same banana peels that his stable mates in the Tinubu media team stepped on, which has resulted in their loss of credibility and integrity in the Nigerian public space.
From his first statement in his engagement with the media, Alake seemed to have lost the plot. In seeking to justify President Tinubu’s removal of subsidies Alake said ” President Tinubu took
bullets for Nigeria’s survival.” Alake went on ”I
recall and most of you are aware, many years ago there was this issue of removal of subsidies that dominated the space in Nigeria and there were protests. The government at the time backtracked because there elections coming. And so people swallowed the bitter pill. But somebody came and decided to swallow the bitter pill to take the bullets on behalf of Nigerians.”
Factually taken on its own merits many Nigerians would not connect with this statement from Alake because President Tinubu who Alake is fulsome in praise for ”taking bullets” on behalf of Nigerians, rides in a full option bullet proof Cadillac Escalade worth over a billion naira. If Alake is infering that the President was willing to face the ”bullets” both literarily and figuratively for
daring to implement what previous
adminitrations had declined to do, then he would not be riding in an armour plated car and would not splurge such stupendous amount of money on a car when the rallying admonition by the administration to Nigerians is to tighten their belts and endure the painful economic policies being implemented. If Alake was not so inebriated by the position he presently occupies in the administration he would have noticed the ridiculous irony and contradiction in his statement and stopped himself from making it.
I believe also that Alake was refering to the Goodluck Jonathan administration which reversed the price increase in petroleum products following protests by Nigerians. First of all Jonathan implemented the policy on January 1, 2012 from N87 to N141 and he
partially reversed it a few days later on January
16 to N97 at first and then to N87. Contrary to the claims by Alake, the partial reversal was not as a result of forthcoming elections. Indeed Jonathan had not spent a year in office when he implemented and partially reversed the policy. So it could not have been as a result of election pressure that compelled the Jonathan administration to partially review the policy because the next circle of elections was a good three years away.
We knew that what forced the Jonathan government to reverse the price increase was the massive nationwide ”Occupy Nigeria” protests against the policy which was organized by people who Alake knew. The same people who condemned and encouraged the protests against Jonathan then are ironically the ones who implemented the current subsidy removal
and have unlike Jonathan who humanely
reversed the price downward during his time, have remained steadfastly impervious to calls to even consider doing what Jonathan did even by a fraction.
From this perspective, Alake’s attempt to justify the removal of subsidy by the Tinubu adminitration is farcical and it is neither sound by economic parameters nor by moral considerations. He repeats the same threadbare arguments about removal of subsidy resulting in increased revenue to all tiers of government and the courage exhibited by President Tinubu in implementing economic reforms that other leaders have shied away from. He also ranted that subsidy removal had resulted in eliminating wastage in the economy which benefitted cartels and economic sabouteurs. He rounded off saying that if
subsidy had not been removed many states
would not be able to pay salaries.
In the course of writing this article i interviewed a retired Central Bank of Nigeria economist who pleaded anonymity. His views are that ”The Nigerian economy runs on a very specific transmission mechanism. Fuel prices determines transport cost. Transport cost determines food price. Power cost determines cost. Wages and exchange rate then adjust to that baseline.” The economist went on ”The unplanned and abrupt withdrawal of fuel subsidy in May 2023 broke that mechanism without providing an alternative. It was not a gradual reform tied to refineries, mass transit or social buffers. The result was a negative supply shock that ran through every sector at once. Logistics became more expensive overnightManufacturers energy bills tripled.
Farmers could not move produce. Households
diverted income from food, health and education to fuel. The shock fed directly into inflation, weakened purchasing power and slowed real economic activity. Instead of efficiency what we got was disruption.”
Alakes upbeat claims on subsidy removal which looks good on paper however is tempered by the following realities on ground; timing and sequencing created avoidable pain which millions of Nigerians are now experiencing; fiscal gains have not reached the citizens as projected;forex stability came at the cost of domestic demand and a broken social contract between the Government and the citizens.
If Dele Alake intends to defend the Tinubu administration especially on the issue of subsidy removal and cordinate his re-election
campaign in 2027, he has to prepare convincing
and comprehensive answers to pertinent questions on the subject. It does not make sense to point to increase in money now available to tiers of government as evidence of the efficacy of the policy when in reality the money is not judiciously spent on the people to whom it is meant. It is equally illogical to say that subsidy removal was predicated on eliminating cartels that where benefitting from the policy and denying the people the benefits of the policy when government has not identified and punished those it described as economic saboteurs. Without closing these gaps in the subsidy removal issue, what the Tinubu administration is doing amounts to robbing poor people to pay the rich and influential people in society.
Dele Alake was no doubt a star performer as
Commissioner for Information and Strategy
under Tinubu’s governorship in Lagos. One of his most notable achievements was his fierce defence of his principal against political opponents like Chief Bode George who he usedt to constantly harangued in the public place. But in the current dispensation he has the entire Nigeria to account to and this requires more nuanced approach based on factual and logical presentation.
