Tinubu will prove doubters wrong, policies will yield dividends — IMPI

Niyi Akinsiju, chairman of the Independent Media and Policy Initiative (IMPI), has said President Bola Tinubu’s economic policies will eventually deliver positive results despite the short-term hardship they have imposed on Nigerians.

Akinsiju said the President’s reforms should be viewed against the experience of leaders such as Ronald Reagan, former United States President and Margaret Thatcher, former British Prime Minister, whose economic policies initially attracted widespread opposition before being credited with transforming their respective economies.

In a policy statement analysing Tinubu’s nationwide broadcast following the August 1–10, 2024 protests, IMPI said the resistance to the President’s reforms reflected the “usual intolerance to new thinking and innovative policy-change implementation.”

The group said Reagan’s economic policies were dismissed by his opponents as “voodoo economics” but were later associated with a period of prosperity, while Thatcher’s free-market reforms, privatisation policies and restrictions on trade union influence eventually became accepted features of British economic policy.

“Like Reagan and Thatcher, President Tinubu is implementing policies whose benefits may not be immediately obvious because of the pains associated with adjustment,” IMPI said.

The think tank particularly defended the administration’s promotion of compressed natural gas (CNG) as an alternative to petrol, saying the lower cost of CNG demonstrated the economic logic behind the policy.

According to the group, 50 litres of petrol at N650 per litre would cost N32,500, compared with N7,500 for 30kg of CNG at N250 per kilogramme.

“This, to our mind, is pragmatic thinking,” IMPI said.

It also cited the Consumer Credit Corporation, the Nigeria Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) and the Investment in Digital and Creative Enterprises (iDICE) programme as evidence that the administration was moving beyond policy announcements to implementation.

It said more than N2.5 billion had been disbursed to qualified beneficiaries under the student loan scheme, out of the N150 billion establishment fund, while the federal government had activated the technology and innovation sector with $620 million under iDICE.

On public finances, Akinsiju said the reduction in the proportion of government revenue devoted to debt servicing from 97% to 68% represented a significant improvement.

He attributed the development partly to the removal of fuel subsidy and increased foreign exchange inflows, which he said rose to $24 billion in the first half of 2024 from $7.29 billion in the corresponding period of 2023.

IMPI also noted that distributable revenue to the three tiers of government rose to N12.45 trillion in the first half of 2024, compared with N5.2 trillion in the same period of 2023.

The group said the increased revenue had given federal, state and local governments greater fiscal space to fund essential services, including education and healthcare.

The group urged Nigerians to look beyond the immediate difficulties and assess the reforms based on their long-term impact on economic growth, government revenue and living standards.(BusinessDay)