By Mayowa Olumuyiwa
As the lockdown across the country as a result of the ongoing coronavirus takes its toll on the peoples’ living condition across the country, the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu has advised President Muhammadu Buhari on how to keep the economy going and cushion the effects of the lockdown on the masses.
To protect the vulnerable citizens from hunger and diseases during the ongoing COVID-19 restrictions, Tinubu said whatever economic relief package that would be adopted by the government should come in the form of emergency sustenance payments to vulnerable Nigerians.
He noted that while intervention programmes such as TraderMoni among others can only service the need of some petty traders, those packages failed to put salary earners who lost his job due to the COVID-19 restrictions into consideration.
The APC leader also charged the Central Bank of Nigeria to lower interest rates to single digits in order assist the private sector and reduce the charge on deficit spending.
“We dare not underestimate the twin dangers posed by the virus itself and the economic consequences of the public health response. Our goal must be that the people live neither with disease nor in hunger. This situation presents a historic chance to establish a more beneficial social contract between the government and the governed,” Tinubu said.
He noted further that, “If we so utilize this moment, it will be recorded as a pivotal one in our national history. If we allow this moment to slip, history will not be obliged to treat us with great mercy.
“The worst of this dark potential can be avoided if the government is prepared to act in ways that not only feed people but protect the basic contours of our private-sector economy so that it can more quickly revive once normal conditions return.”
He also advised the Buhari-led administration to either suspend or amend the 5% deficit limit of the fiscal responsibility law which prohibits fiscal deficit from exceeding 5% of the nation’s gross domestic product.
According to him, “the best step would be to suspend the 5% budgetary limit for this fiscal year. Alternatively, the limit should be raised to 25-30% to allow the federal government more room to make the minimum expenditures necessary to save the economy and the people”.
On emergency sustenance payments, Tinubu said it could be paid to households for monthly needs or as emergency unemployment insurance to people who can prove they have been laid off due to the crisis or as payroll support to businesses to help them maintain staff so they can return to full operation when normalcy returns.
He went further to advise re-establishment of agricultural market and commodity boards for strategically important crops to stabilise farmers’ income and consumer prices.
Tinubu also advocated for the inclusion of the vulnerable children in the government’s school feeding programme.
He said government should use this opportunity to push for diplomatic debt relief from its lenders.
Meanwhile, the former Lagos governor had, in the recent times, come under intense criticism at the wake of donations coming from several donors to the federal government. While many people, especially within the sociopolitical space of his native Lagos state, had waited in vain for him to follow suit in the sharing of relief and palliatives.
However, some observers have also argued that, as a close confidant of both the President and the Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, he should have taken this policy document directly to the President and the Governor. By making the document available to the general public, therefore, those who belong to this school of thought argued that the APC stalwart might deliberately be playing to the gallery.
It would be recalled that Lagos for weeks has remained the worst hit in the entire country with more cases and deaths recorded from the dreaded pandemic. Many people have questioned, publicly and privately, how much of intervention, advisory or palliatives the godfather of Lagos politics has provided to help his own state.
The ongoing pandemic has also led many to beam searchlights on the ruling party’s manifesto, with many analysts wondering if the ruling party in which Tinubu serves as a national leader not have any provisions for such emergency interventions such as the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
While this is important, of more concerns is the fact that Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is an insider who is quite very close to the President.
A few observations come to mind here.
Some social commentators opine that this public advice does not really portray the established cordiality between Tinubu and the government in power when it is taken for granted that he talks with the President privately to earn him opportunities to air such views without going public.
Again, analysts wonder how much of free access Tinubu enjoy with Buhari and Sanwo-Olu, his political son and incumbent Governor of his state.
It would be recalled that Lagos for weeks has remained the worst hit in the entire country with more cases and deaths recorded from the dreaded pandemic.
Political observers querry how much of intervention and advisory or palliatives the godfather of Lagos politics put forward to help his own state. After all, charity they say, begins from home.
Some public commentators also ask if the ruling party in which the Jagaban serves as a national leader does have provisions for such emergency interventions like covid-19 pandemic since it appears like it is a big deal for the APC National Executive Council and its National Working Committee to adopt a common position on Covid-19 and its general policy direction.
As gathered from the tone in Tinubu’s thoughts, commentaries are yet to exhaust the question if Tinubu is not satisfied with performances of the various APC led government and why Nigerians should in turn repose such a great confidence in the incumbent Buhari-led federal government of Nigeria where he is a trusted ally and an insider?
These are questions begging for answers while considering the latest position of the Asiwaju of Lagos.
