LAST Tuesday, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu received in audience the leadership of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), led by its President, Most Rev. Matthew Ndagoso. The clerics were on what was described as a courtesy visit.
After remarks by the leader of the delegation, the president responded, and I quote, inter alia:
“I have listened to you carefully, and most importantly, your key areas are security and education. I can tell you categorically with sincerity that the country has been placed on a sound footing. The economy has recovered. The alarm for bankruptcy and dark tunnel of uncertainty that we had when I came in has been changed.
“The spirit of the people is lifting, and the economic turmoil that we feared is cleared. The economy has been delivered from bankruptcy.
“I always say, because of my background and profession, that I inherited the assets and liabilities of my predecessor. I have been running with it. This government has stabilised, and there is prosperity on the horizon. Life is improving,” he stated.
I have a cultural problem in responding to the president’s assertions. In Yorubaland, nobody ever says an elder is lying, so I will differ from the president’s position about the economy. Of course, it is unlikely that we will see issues from the same prism; a classroom teacher holding a cane during a Maths lesson cannot feel the same way as his pupils are feeling. Starting with the economy, which the president says has recovered, I must admit that he is privy to information that those of us in the media do not have, and will struggle for weeks or months, if ever, to have. On the side of the people, there is little evidence to support that. Ordinary people like me and other hapless Nigerians measure an economy working in their favour froam the prices of commodities, especially food and fuel energy. Nothing is affordable anymore! People are eating because they just have to; their bodies need energy, and that comes from food. If one thinks of the cost of food items alone, one may decide to be on a permanent hunger strike. And fuel energy? I can’t remember in my relatively short lifetime that things have been so bad and tight. One remembers hardships inflicted during general strikes by NUPENG during the June 12 struggle; that was for a while, and normalcy was soon restored. But since 2023 when Mr Tinubu became president, it has been tales of woes at individual levels. When subsidy was removed and petrol prices hit the rooftops, we coasted along in the belief that it was temporal; there’d be relief soon. We were wrong, dead wrong. Matters came to a head for most Nigerians in February this year when conflict broke out in the Middle East and the US and Israel decided to wage war against Iran. That triggered an upsurge in petrol prices, from an average of N743 in the Lagos area to above N1,300 in other parts of the country. As we speak, most of us are still buying petrol at around the N1,300 mark. It is new yam season, but most Nigerians cannot afford it. One tuber of new yam is priced between N2,500 and N8,500 depending on size. You need to virtually break a bank to have yams for breakfast. And in a country without electricity, with gas prices at what they are now, cooking has also become a luxury. With these high prices, the ability to save is severely diminished; all earnings go on daily survival. That is not the experience of a people whose economy has recovered.
The president further said that there is prosperity on the horizon and life is improving. Ko ri bee sir!That’s not true for most of us, except perhaps for politicians who have easy access to the resources of the commonwealth to do with as they wish.
To further adumbrate, as lawyers say, on why the president’s assertions are baseless, we need explanations on why implementation of Budget 2026 has not started. And July is ended. Tomorrow is August 1, five months left to year end. It is also now common knowledge that implementation of the 2025 budget is yet to be concluded. Indeed, it was a member of the APC, Senator Tahir Monguno of Borno State that raised the alarm when his committee had an engagement with the Minister of Finance that 70 per cent of Budget 2025 provisions had been rolled over into 2026. Pray, Mr President, is that a characteristic of an improved economy? With a budget so badly implemented, is there prosperity on the horizon?
Monguno spoke further: “If revenues are exceeding projections, why is budget implementation lagging behind? The dividends of democracy are delivered through the implementation of the budget, particularly capital projects. If the budget is not being implemented, then the fundamental purpose of government is undermined.”
Let me close this week’s column with more quotes from Monguno, a member of the president’s party.
“From the figures presented to us and the briefings we have received from revenue-generating agencies, almost all of them have exceeded their revenue targets. If revenue performance has improved so significantly, it appears inherently contradictory that government is still struggling to implement the budget. Where is the revenue going?”
“Failure to implement an Appropriation Act amounts to a breach of the law, and such a breach is an impeachable offence,” he said.
Can’t be said better. From where the president is sitting, the economy is improving and there is prosperity on the horizon. From our on-going experience, the reverse is quite the case. At this stage, one can only pray for God to open Mr President’s eyes to see our plight, and do the needful. Isn’t that the only thing one can say at a time like this? TGIF.
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