By Goddy Ikeh
For many Nigerians the flagging economy is the source of real anguish which they feel daily on a personal level.
Many more believe it is the result of the bad choices they made when Bola Tinubu was voted as Nigeria’s fifth elected president since the return to democracy 25 years ago.
Tinubu’s presidency clocked a year last week and to mark it Nigerians have been indicating how life has been teetering on the bring ever since.
A coalition of Nigeria’s labour unions are embarkinng on a nationwide wildcat strike beginning on Monday to press home that point.
‘’Before him the Nigerian economy was struggling but now it has slowed to a crawl’’, said one civil servant who declined to be named.
There is a very low score from the Africa Polling Institute (API) survey on the first one year of the administration of President Tinubu, who is still trying to figure out the best way of handling the demand for a review of the national minimum wage by the striking labour unions and managing the nation’s problematic economy.
The API has said that hunger, poverty and dissatisfaction are the harsh realities of Nigerians, as an overwhelming majority of citizens (84%) express profound sadness with the current state of affairs in the country.
The latest API survey, released last Wednesday, May 29, 2024, said 81% of respondents feel the country is headed in the wrong direction.
36% complain about growing hunger, 28% about the inability to meet basic needs, 13% focus on unemployment, 9% on heightened insecurity while 5% say acute electricty shortage is one of the biggest challenges they face personally.
“In addition, a staggering 74% of citizens affirmed that their personal economic situation has deteriorated over the last year, compared to 20% who said their personal economic situation had remained the same and a mere 5% who said it had improved” the survey indicates.
The national survey, according to the API, was administered between May 1st and 18th, 2024, to elicit citizens’ opinions and assessments of President Bola Tinubu’s first year in charge and that it was conducted using a stratified random sampling method, ensuring representation from all nationwide demographic groups.
It explained that a total of 3,996 citizens were interviewed, providing a robust and diverse dataset for analysis.
Furthermore, in terms of the job performance of President Tinubu, a significant 78% of citizens say he had performed abysmally, with 49% rate him “very poor” while 29% say grade him as “poor.”
This widespread dissatisfaction also extends to the performance of other arms of government, as a striking 81% of citizens rate Senate President Godswill Akpabio dismally, compared to 79% who rate Tajudeen Abbas, Speaker of the House of Representatives, poorly.
Also, the Nigerian Judiciary under the CJN, Justice Olukayode Ariwoola, was not spared, as 75% of citizens also rate him poorly.
The API added that citizens were asked to assess the performance of President Tinubu’s cabinet in order to identify the performing and non-performing ministers.
“Interestingly, 68% of citizens think that none of the cabinet members had performed well since their appointments. However, 32% were willing to identify those they considered the top and least performing ministers,” the survey says.
The API survey refers to “a growing mass of aggrieved and discontented citizens nationwide, especially among the youth… Many are unemployed or underemployed and have become local crusaders and social activists in their communities, waiting for the slightest opportunity to vent their anger against fellow citizens and the Nigerian state.”
Aside from the poor scorecard by the survey, Civic-tech platform, BudgIT rates President Tinubu’s administration low in fiscal transparency.
In the report, appraising the first-year performance of the administration, BudgIT says, “Fiscal transparency has declined under President Tinubu’s administration. The Budget Office has yet to release the 2023 Q2 Budget Implementation report, despite the Fiscal Responsibility Act’s mandate that it be released 30 days after the quarter’s end”.
It adds that the Federation’s Fiscal Accounts, including receipts from all collection agencies and payments out of the Federation Account, have not been released since August 2023, when they were last uploaded on the Open Treasury portal.
Meanwhile, the report by Punch newspaper stated that some economic pundits have shared divergent views about the performance of the Tinubu-led government on its first anniversary.
The different reviews of the administration’s performance, which were shared with The PUNCH newspaper last Wednesday showed that President Tinubu beat the record of his predecessor in his first-year performance, according to the Analysts Data Services & Resources.
The analysis, which measured the performances based on 25 indicators under five segments of the economy, namely; output and prices, financial statistics, international finance, public finance, and governance and institutions, indicated that the Tinubu administration scored 53.6 percent, higher than that of former President, Muhammadu Buhari at 48.8 percent.
“PBAT is ranked along with Tinubu’s four other predecessors since 1999 on each of these 25 indicators and the average scores are converted to percentages. In addition, some of the policies, programmes, and interventions of the current administration are identified to highlight their possible contribution to the current state of the economy.
“Generally, it is observed that the first-year performance ranking of Nigerian presidents has been on the decline. It fell from the highest level under Obasanjo (72.8 percent) to the lowest under Buhari (48.8 percent).
“However, a turning point is being observed under the Tinubu administration, raising overall first-year performance to 53.6 per cent. The strong segment for the Tinubu administration is documented to be public finance (64 per cent), and the weak segment is output and prices (40 per cent),” the report stated.
Analysts at ASDR urged the Tinubu government to “engage the private sector in the provision of necessary infrastructure to free public resources, collaborate with development partners but be seen as capable of independent thinking and policymaking in a pro-citizen manner, build trust with workers by prioritising their welfare and engaging in discussions to increase wages and productivity”.
“The coordinating minister (needs) to be more visible. Make the process of policy formulation and implementation more objective, transparent and evidence-based and constantly keep the citizens informed about the costs and benefits of current reforms” they suggested.
Meristem Securities Limited, in its macroeconomic commentary titled ‘One Year in Power: Assessing the Current Administration’s Policy Direction’ also highlighted the focus of the administration as of May 2023 and how far it had implemented them.
Meristem said that the success of the administration in the remaining years of its tenure will largely depend on effective policy execution, political stability, and continued public and private sector collaboration.
The report recalled that during Tinubu’s first year in office, the headline inflation rate moved from 22.22 per cent in April 2023 to 33.69 per cent in April this year.
Similarly, the Nigerian currency, the Naira depreciated during this period due to its floating from 461.76/$ as of May 2023 to $1,479.69 currently.
On the upside, the Gross Domestic Product grew by 0.47 per cent year-on-year, from 2.31 per cent in Q1 2023 to 2.98 per cent, while crude oil production also rose by 15.65 per cent to 1.33mbpd as of the end of the first quarter of 2024.
Despite the pictures painted on the Nigerian economy by analysts, manufacturers in Nigeria are lamenting that the multiplicity of taxes, levies and fees have continued to hamper the competitiveness of the manufacturing sector in the global space.
Against the backdrop of the advent of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), this even puts Nigerian manufacturers at a disadvantage with their African counterparts, with the nation’s corporate tax rate at over 30 percent well above the global average at 23.37 percent and African average at 27.6 percent.
The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), the umbrella body of manufacturers in the country say the nation’s manufacturing sector is groaning under a multiplicity of taxes and levies, noting that over 30 of such different taxes, levies and fees are being charged by various government agencies.
In the area of insecurity, latest figures show that so far 4500 people have been killed and 7000 persons kidnapped in the last one year of the administration of President Tinubu.
GIK/as/APA