By John Azu
A former political adviser to ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, Akin Osuntokun, has said President Bola Tinubu has succeeded in stabilising Nigeria’s macroeconomic indicators, despite the economic hardship faced by citizens.
He, however, said the major challenge was reconciling the improved macroeconomic indicators with conditions in the domestic economy, a disconnect he identified as a key factor behind the hardship in the country.
Osuntokun spoke on Friday during a Zoom interview with Professor Jideofor Adibe on News Chronicles’ Conversations.
He said the removal of the petrol subsidy and the floating of the naira had introduced greater predictability into the country’s foreign exchange market but had also imposed significant sacrifices on Nigerians.
According to him, the sacrifices were inevitable given the state of the economy before the reforms.
Comparing the Tinubu administration’s economic policies with the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) introduced under the military regime of General Ibrahim Babangida in the 1980s, Osuntokun said the current reforms had put Nigeria in a better position to attract foreign direct investment (FDI).
He argued that the outcomes of the earlier reforms did not provide the same prospects for attracting foreign investment.
“Nigerians have to learn the lessons the hard way,” he said.
However, Osuntokun criticised the conduct of the political leadership overseeing the reforms, saying their actions did not reflect the message of sacrifice they were communicating to the public.
He cited the reported purchase of expensive vehicles for members of the National Assembly as an example of the contradiction between the government’s call for sacrifice and the spending habits of political officeholders.
On the 2027 presidential election, Osuntokun, a former Director-General of Peter Obi’s Labour Party presidential campaign, predicted that President Tinubu would win, arguing that ethno-regional considerations would play a major role in determining the outcome.
He said he declined an invitation to participate in Obi’s campaign again because he believed that few prominent Yoruba figures would be willing to work against a sitting president from the South-West.
Osuntokun maintained that Obi had received the highest number of votes in the 2023 presidential election, although he believed the outcome did not reflect the actual voting pattern.
He, however, said the political calculations ahead of the 2027 election had changed, adding that the ruling party would be better prepared for the next contest.