Obasanjo’s Issue With Tinubu Has Nothing To Do With Planning And Everything To Do With Envy – Afenifere

Like many Nigerians, we of the CONSCIENCE OF YORUBA NATION GROUP an affiliate group of Afenifere woke up to watch the interview of former President Olusegun Obasanjo granted to News-Central Television, of which he made several fallacious claims, chief of which is that the President, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, entered office without a plan, and makes pronouncements on issues he has not studied.

Nothing could be further from the truth: President Tinubu had a plan and shared that plan with Nigerians before Nigerians convincingly elected him as their President, and rejected the candidate sponsored by General Obasanjo.

And the Tinubu strategy was so well disseminated during the 2023 election campaign season that even right now, we can repeat them by rote, and they were as follows:

End subsidy

Float the Naira

Devolve power from the Federal to the State and Local Governments, and

Expand education via student loans.

*Others can be found in his manifesto, Renewed Hope, which was widely circulated during the campaigns*

Unlike any other President in this republic, including General Olusegun Obasanjo, President Tinubu hit the ground running with his plan of which he implemented subsidy removal on Day One, and floated the Naira within weeks while achieving Local Government autonomy via a judicial victory at the Supreme Court on Thursday, July 11, 2024, even as he introduced student loans five days later on Wednesday, July 17, 2024.

It is not that the President had the gumption and courage to implement his plans where others, most notably the Third Term-seeking Obasanjo, failed, the more noteworthy thing is that his reforms are working.

For example, Nigeria’s fuel imports have crashed, and we are now consuming less than 50% of what we allegedly consumed before President Tinubu implemented fuel subsidy removal. Why? Because due to price equalisation with neighbouring countries, the smuggling of cheap Nigerian fuel to other countries in the West African subregion has ended.

Furthermore, due to the floating of the Naira, we are now exporting more than we are importing. Specifically, Nigeria set a record of $4.58 billion in non-oil exports in 2023, which was not just a record but a 28.04% increase on the previous year.

We are set to break that record in 2024, as the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics revealed that by the half-year 2024, Nigeria had made $2.7 Billion in non-oil exports. This is already an H1 record.

Nigeria is now at the point where Vietnam was, where devaluation has made exports more attractive and cost-effective, leading to the record ₦14.07 trillion trade surplus we achieved by half of 2024.

To give some perspective, in 2016, Nigeria’s total non-oil exports totalled $1.4 billion. Now, we are making that in just one quarter.

Nigeria also had a trade deficit in the first year of Buhari (2016), with total imports at ₦8.527 trillion and total exports at ₦8.817 trillion, leaving a deficit of ₦290.1 billion.

But in the first and second years of the Tinubu administration, we are witnessing record-breaking trade surpluses.

Additionally, on Thursday, March 28, 2024, the Nigerian Stock Exchange crossed 104,562.06 All Shares Index, a 39.84% increase year-to-date, making it the second-best performing exchange in Africa.

And only yesterday, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria revealed that our reserves are now above $40 billion. This is an administration that inherited a foreign reserve that was so bad that JP Morgan said it was actually $3.7 billion.

Yet, somebody who could not achieve these, because he was distracted with how to perpetuate himself in power and engaging in a Rofo-Rofo fight with his deputy has the gall to condemn a performer?

Nigerians need to understand where General Olusegun Obasanjo is coming from.

This is a man with the mother of all egos. He wants to be the only successful President from Southern Nigeria. That is what he wants as his legacy. And to achieve that, he must undermine every other Southerner who emerges, despite his best efforts to stop them, as President of Nigeria.

It is for that reason that he undermined former President Goodluck Jonathan by lying that that good man was maintaining a killer squad of former Abacha hitmen to target political enemies.

Today, his poisonous darts have been aimed at President Tinubu, who he feels has already outshined and out-achieved him in just one year. Nigerians should see it for what it is. Sour grapes and envy!

Kole Omololu

Convener Conscience of Yoruba Nation Group

Spokesman of Afenifere