Tinubu to Buhari: It’s time work harder for Nigerians

…Urges President to work out a model that is home grown, peculiar to meeting economic needs of Nigerians

…Says increase in VAT will reduce purchasing power of Nigerian consumers, increase hardship

Tom Okpe, Abuja and Patrick Okohue, Lagos

National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, has challenged President Muhammadu Buhari to roll up his sleeves and use his second term in office to work to make the lives of Nigerians better by leading them into a new economic prosperity.

Tinubu said the present economic reality across the world is such that each nation must work out its plans to take its people out of the raging economic downturn, urging President Buhari to work on a model that is not only home grown, but peculiar to meeting the economic needs of the people.

The former Lagos State governor, who spoke on Thursday during at a Colloquium to mark his 67th birthday held at the International Conference Centre in Abuja, on Thursday, said: “Our pursuit of the Next Level cannot be achieved by blindly following the economic path of other nations.

That would be tantamount to racing to live in a building just as its long-term occupants were frantically rushing out, screaming that the edifice was mean and crumbling. If we are smart, we dare not enter.

“Instead, we must construct our Next Level on a progressive ideology and vision that will take our people out of penury, diversify our economy more aggressively, and empower and retrain our youth.

“To be the great nation we purport to be, we must reform and retool our economy according to our definition of what is best for our own people. We cannot assign that duty to anyone else.

“Here, I must ask for a little liberty to amend the fine title of this colloquium: “Work for the people.”

We must do more than simply work for the people. Government must “work for the people in a way that enables them to better work for themselves.”

Tinubu, who also used the opportunity to chide the government for its fixation with GDP rates and similar statistics, added that “We must amend our basic ideas about the economy.

We must divorce ourselves from our fixation with GDP rates and similar statistics. These things were initially intended to be indicators, suggestive measurements.

However, we have misinterpreted these road maps by treating them as if they were the destination itself.

“This has caused us to distort the organic relationship between the people and the economy.

“This dominant train of thought has made the people servants to the dictates of abstract economic theories.

In a more effective system, the economy would be fashioned to serve the concrete needs and legitimate aspirations of the people.

“Our economy must be redefined to be an efficient yet moral social construct with the primary goal of optimising the long-term welfare of the people through the sustained, productive and full employment of labour, land, capital and natural resources.”

The APC national leader also opposed Federal Government’s plan to increase the Value Added Tax (VAT).

He said an increase in VAT will reduce the purchasing power of Nigerian consumers and is capable of increasing hardship in the country.

“This is why I appeal on Osinbajo (Yemi) and his team to put a huge question mark on any increase on VAT please…”, Tinubu said.

Opposing any plan to increase taxes, Tinubu said the government should rather widen the tax net and include those who are not yet being taxed.

“Let’s make the nets get bigger so we take in more taxes. That is what we must do in the country instead of putting an additional layer of taxes for now.”

He warned against following global trend in economic development, saying that, “In the current global context, the best translation of laissez faire economics is “let’s stay poor” economics.

“To believe that we are at our best when everyone focuses solely on maximizing their own position is to believe that one hundred hands can clutch at the same naira note but no one will get scratched.

“To pull the nation from poverty, government must play a decisive role. It must at times direct and even develop markets and opportunities.

This is nothing novel. I am only restating what the established economies did when they were young and assumed their trajectories toward growth.

“Yet, how do we organise ourselves to meet this task?

“Like no Nigerian government before, I believe the second administration of President Buhari shall dedicate itself to changing the very structure of our economy for the better.”

Tinubu also took out time to look at the various economic downturns plaguing various nations of the world and warned against repeating such economic errors.

“The global economy faces stiff headwinds. Factors not of our making now cast the world economy towards low growth.

“Consumer spending is slipping. Aggregate private debt has attained historic levels. America and China are in a trade tug-of-war. Brexit looms imminent.

Whatever form Brexit takes, economic dislocation will emerge from the political confusion now underway.

“Even without Brexit, the EU itself has entered a rough patch. The Eurozone may already be in recession. Stock markets experience wild swings that speak to an underlying weakness and pessimism about the immediate future.

“Forecasters are predicting a global recession within the next 12-18 months.

“I render these observations not to frighten anyone but because they ring true. Wisdom requires that we accept reality instead of obscuring it under the cloak of wishful thinking.

We must build policies that interact with the world as it is, and not with the world as it should be.

“We must recognise these harsh economic tidings as advance warnings to the wise. Hence we must think deeper and work harder for our people in Nigeria.

“I would be a most wicked friend if I knew a storm was approaching yet convinced you to ready your family for an outdoor picnic under the tallest tree. The truth is always a more valuable guardian than fantasy.

“You see, Next Level is not just a trendy campaign phrase to be quickly discarded once victory has been achieved.

“It has a much deeper and more profound meaning, perhaps even more than its authors contemplated. This is because we are a nation still in the process of defining itself politically and economically.

“In this process, it is tempting and easy to borrow indiscriminately from those nations that seem to have mastered the art of democratic governance and to have achieved economic prosperity.

“However, to achieve durable progress, we can’t afford to work hard but in mindless devotion to the ways of other nations.

“Mr. President, you have warned several times that the storm that approaches is not inevitable. It is born of a human folly and reckless greed. This means that it can be rectified by human wisdom and prudential action.

“At this point we must recognise a fundamental truth of our time. The economic model upon which the world is built is unraveling. The coming downturn is just a symptom of this great upheaval.”

The APC leader said to achieve the new economic turnaround that everyone desires for the nation, there was the need to work harder on revamping the nation’s critical infrastructure, especially power.

“The single most important sector for the government’s focus is infrastructure. The most important of our infrastructural demands is power. This has been the greatest discovery of humanity in the last thousand years.”

“Affordable and reliable power will drive the industrialisation that shall provide jobs in our cities and produce needed goods for all our people. In a more poetic rendering, it will take our people out of the dark ages and bring the nation into the light of a better day.

“I believe the second Buhari administration will work to increase electricity generation, transmission and distribution by more than 50 percent within the next 4 years.”

He added that while the nation requires serious and bold reforms to achieve this, that it was also necessary “we should push to end the practice of billing people for electricity they never received.

This practice is a vestige of the past that should not accompany us into the future. A person should be charged accurately and only for the power that they use,” he said.

He continued: “Government should continue to aggressively implement its national infrastructure plan.

We must commit ourselves to a national highway system linking our major cities and towns, our centres of commerce, with each other. This will save lives, spur commerce, cut costs and bring Nigerians closer together.

“Water catchment and retention systems in strategic locations should also be introduced to end the destructive cycles of flood and drought affecting many areas.

“In working to transform the face of our economy, government must also enact policies that encourage industrialization and modern agricultural practices.

“We must applaud President Buhari for the historic innovations made in the agricultural sector. We must further encourage him to do even more.

Government funded social security for the aged and government backed affordable housing and mortgage facilities are things we must continue to explore in an aggressive manner,” Tinubu added.

The Colloquium’ was attended by President Muhammadu Buhari, represented by the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, top government functionaries including the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, APC top notchers, including party’s governors and governors-elect, while Lagos State governor, Akinwumi Ambode, played the host.