The Middle Belt Forum (MBF) has called on President Bola Tinubu to reconsider his economic strategies, highlighting that the combined impact of removing the petrol subsidy and floating the Naira has deepened poverty and placed a heavy burden on Nigerians.
Speaking over the weekend in Makurdi, MBF’s National President, Dr. Bitrus Pogu, noted, “One doesn’t need to be an economist to recognize the economic issues caused by the federal government’s misguided policies, which have driven millions of Nigerians into poverty in just about 17 months of this administration.”
“The fact is that this government just deliberately killed the economy with the sudden removal of petrol subsidy and floating of the Naira.
“By the reason of these policies, too much burden has been placed on Nigerians and therefore the lean resources they have is still being taken away either by the removal of subsidy or by the devaluation of the Naira.
“Both actions have impacted negatively on the cost of products and the direct impact is on the poor; because it is the poor that are suffering from the economic policies.
“The President needs to get able hands to handle his economic policies rather than doing things haphazardly.
“For example, rather than suddenly removing fuel subsidy, if he had started the CNG programme first and then made CNG accessible and affordable across the country before removing the subsidy, people would not even go around looking for petrol, they would be using CNG.
“But after killing the economy for over a year and a half then he started bringing the CNG thing and it is only having impact maybe in Lagos and Obajana and it is now getting out of reach because it is found only in a few places.
“Again, the cost of conversion of cars to use CNG is so astronomical and it has again created more problems. So members of his economic team are not doing a good job and we pray that he does a rethink.”
The Vanguard Newspaper
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