Prince Adewole Adebayo, the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the 2023 presidential election, has said that Nigerians lamenting the harsh impact of President Bola Tinubu government’s economic policies should not forget they voted for the policies even though they were not good policies.
According to him, he and his political party warned Nigerians during their campaign ahead of the 2023 poll not to listen to Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) on subsidy removal.
He lamented that people thought that Tinubu, Atiku and Obi had more experience and might have been more realistic.
He said, “These policies are not working. Unfortunately, Nigerians have voted for these policies. We voted for these policies either because we didn’t pay attention or we didn’t understand the implications of these policies.
“When you decide to say you vote for a government that says it will remove subsidy day one, which was what President Tinubu said, which was what Vice President Atiku Abubakar, which was what Governor Peter Obi said, and we said don’t listen to them, but people thought they have experience and maybe they are more realistic than us. So, they voted that way.
“So, any of them that formed the government and adopted any of these policies will have, at the minimum, what we are experiencing now or even worse.”
Adebayo noted that the current economic policies in Nigeria are not good, not because of the parties announcing them but because structurally they are not suitable for Nigeria.
He said, “You will recall that I was shouting during the election that 80% of our crude was being stolen, and I campaigned for months on that, unfortunately, voters didn’t realise that whoever was able to tackle the crude oil theft should be the one to lead the country.
“People need to understand at the same time that you voted for these policies. It Is like the people of Israel asking Moses to lead them out of Egypt and on getting to the wilderness, they realised it was not an easy place to be and they started complaining.
“That is a normal thing. The people of Nigeria voted for these policies even though they were not good policies.”
He continued, “I am not surprised at the state of things, but I am disappointed. I am not surprised because we predicted that this would be the outcome. It doesn’t matter whom you put out there. This will be the outcome if you adopt these policies.
“We were asking Nigerians to pay attention as we were debating these issues. There were three policies that we needed to deal with. What do we do with the issue of the cost of governance?
“Two, what do we do with the issue of subsidy. Not only petroleum but subsidy in many other sectors. Three, what do we do with the issue of foreign exchange?
“On these three issues, I have fundamental disagreement with President Bola Tinubu, Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Governor Peter Obi, and many other people who were on that side that these policies will not work.
“It has never worked in any country before, in Nigeria, in the past, including when we did SAP, it didn’t work for us. It is not about one person who is good. Another is bad.
“If you drag me to the villa or Eagle Square and force me to announce these policies, you will get the same result. Anyone who adopts these same policies will get the same result.
“Economists will ask you if there are countries who adopted these policies; are there countries within our hemisphere, countries within our state of development, countries that have our primary production sector like we have who announced these policies and it has worked, I don’t think so.”
Nigerians have been protesting across the country against hardship, rise in inflation and high cost of living.