A California-based Nigerian energy analyst, Kelechukwu Ogu has urged President Bola Tinubu to match his speech at the United Nations General Assembly with action back in Nigeria.
Ogu explained that the president made the announcement of the subsidy removal without putting an alternative plan in place to allow for a smooth transition for Nigerians to manage the sudden change.
He added that in Nigeria, things are wrong with the way they are being done.
“But back home in Nigeria, there are a lot of things wrong with Tinubu’s signalling,” he said.
Also, a business journalist, Mayowa Tijani opined that new forex policies are still making access to foreign exchange difficult.
He said that the “Devaluation of the naira was inevitable, but not just as a single policy. We need complementary policies that allow for the inflow of FX [foreign exchange] for it to make sense. We don’t have enough guidelines and supporting mechanisms to make it work efficiently. We also need to make it easier for investors to take their money out.”
However, Tinubu praised his policy moves in his speech to the General Assembly, saying the resulting hardship is necessary “to establish a foundation for durable growth and investment to build the economy our people deserve.”
He referred to the Marshall Plan of 1948, which tasked the United States with providing the huge resources needed for rebuilding postwar Western Europe, saying that Africa could use such a Western partnership to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, according to Premium Times.
“Today and for several decades, Africa has been asking for the same level of political commitment and devotion of resources that described the Marshall Plan,” he said. “We are not asking for identical programmes and actions. What we seek is an equally firm commitment to partnership. We seek enhanced international cooperation with African nations to achieve the 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals.”
Meanwhile, Seyi Awojulugbe, a senior analyst at SBM Intelligence, a geopolitical platform in Nigeria, said that beyond the “feel good” speech by President Tinubu at the UN, Africa as a continent must offer tangible ways to trigger the partnership that it thinks it deserves. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is playing a visible role in contributing to solving the war in Ukraine, for example, she said. Nigeria’s foreign policy is centred on Africa, but its stances in recent years have indicated otherwise, she argued.
“Africa has depended on foreign aid from the West for quite a while,” she said. “The best thing for Africa and African leaders right now is to come to the table as a participant and offer something. Lean on our soft and hard powers to show the world what Africa has to offer.”
