Nigeria’s economic problems without doubt become worse by the day as life becomes harsher for the majority of citizens. No one should say the crisis need be traced to the President Bola Tinubu government which sat at the helm about 11 months ago, but given what ordinary people say, President Muhammadu Buhari hitherto seen as a villain has become a saint.
The President Tinubu administration, like a chicken from a shell, showed it would be a cock from the first day of its life.
The first chirp told citizens the era of fuel subsidy ended on 28th May, 2023 and as Christians would say, nothing has been the same from the doomsday. The President says he made the statement off script but he made the statement all the same.
Also Read:
- Alleged $1m, £34,537 theft: Court admits P-Square’s ex-manager to N50m bail
- Scientists working to extend human lifespan to 250 years – Medical expert
- Oyebanji lauds Ekiti procurement system, contractors’ capacity to deliver
- Lagos to foster environmental sustainability through collaboration, innovation –Sanwo-Olu
- Police intensify hunts for man who stabbed wife to death in Ogun
The Federal Government’s long knife has been directed at everything which touches ordinary citizens and whatever has been cut off goes to fatten the bloated purses of the haves. How true scripture can be – what the poor enjoyed has been taken away and added to what the rich have to make the poor to be poorer and the rich richer.
Subsidy on petroleum products went with the wind and with it little comforts such as generation of electricity for homes and small businesses. A friend at Port Harcourt went in search of ice blocks for business purposes and met just one outlet with a mammoth crowd. Demand continues to rise but the product cannot be made available courtesy of high gasoline and diesel prices. A cursory review of small shops will reveal the sad number locked up as the business environment becomes more hostile by the day.
What happens when a new administration meets a collapsed economy? Should the new people at the helm crash on the system with the belief things must get worse before they get better? Should the alternative strategy of lessening the pain be adopted to allow people to breathe?
No one can doubt the adoption of harsher policies today for an easier life tomorrow by the Tinubu administration. But what did Mr. Barack Obama, 47th President of the United States, do from 20th January, 2009 when he walked into the helm to tackle the Great Recession? By January 2009 the US economy lost, on average, 800,000 jobs per month.
First, and I hold this as a strong opinion, he revved up spirits with a rousing Inaugural Address. He assured American people and the world of immediate changes to get people to breathe. Second, he worked with the Congress (National Assembly) to pass a dramatic law which reversed the slide in the country. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) or Recovery Act became law on 27th February 2009. Third, he worked with big businesses many of which were about to shut down and drag the economy further down. His bailouts of some big businesses were in fact the second round from the Troubled Asset Relief Programme put together by President George W. Bush, his predecessor who oversaw the collapse of the American economy at the time.
President Obama went the extra mile to make provision in the Recovery Act for funds for research which went to industries, research institutes, and institutions of higher learning. Tax incentives reached big businesses, medium and small businesses, and went down to families. Families received tax cuts, cash payments, child benefits all of which touched about 95 percent of working families and unemployed persons. In Nigeria governments have described it as palliatives targeted at a tiny proportion of the populace while the rich made billions from rice shared to citizens in cups!
There are several Nigerians, for religious reasons, who change the topic of discussion when someone introduces the Barack Obama presidency. But they should be told that research ranks Barack Obama as the most popular modern President in the US. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) and follow up activities performed the wonder which bias cannot wipe away. Chuck Jones of Forbes Magazine on 17th February 2020 noted, “The $831 billion in spending kicked off the longest period of economic growth and job creation in American history.” Mr. Jones continued: “The National Bureau of Economic Research or NBER determines the length of economic expansions and recessions. The recent growth period started in July 2009 and has lasted for 127 months through January 2020. This surpasses the previous record of 120 months from March 1991 to March 2001, which then led into the Great Recession that Obama inherited.”
The Recovery Act came on board as a stimulus package. Wikipedia of 29th January 2024 says the administration packaged the Act “to save existing jobs and create new ones as soon as possible. Other objectives were to provide temporary relief programs for those most affected by the recession and investment in infrastructure, education, health, and renewable energy.”
The efforts of the Obama administration assumed Keynesian economic theory. A fascination for someone with an academic bent should lie in the rationale which Wikipedia credits to Keynesian economic theory. Keynes, a British economist, believed during recessions, governments should offset a decrease in private spending with increase in public spending to save jobs and stop further economic slide. Whatever history says, the theory of Keynes helped to reverse the trend of the Great Depression of the 1930s and put the United States, nay the world economy back on its feet.
A policy such as the Car Allowance Rebate System or cash for clunkers went miles to assist the auto industry which had collapsed. People with old cars drove them to auto shops and drove out new cars paid for by the government. It lasted just two months but it made distressed Chrysler and General Motors to have a breather, reduce unsold stock, and hire back their retrenched workers.
Tax cuts for workers and cash gifts to the unemployed went across the board. In December 2010, the administration worked on payroll tax cuts, continuation of emergency unemployment benefits, as well as tax credits to specific beneficiaries to sustain the recovery. Without such a boost, the economy would likely have slipped back into contraction in the first quarter of 2011.
All of these were measures to save an economy which crashed as a result of the $7 trillion misstep of the housing sector. The entire world saw red all the way to Nigeria where the term “meltdown” entered the popular lingo.
Follow The Eagle Online Channel on WhatsApp
