Hardship: Atiku, Catholic bishops flay Tinubu’s policies

• FG actions paying off – Cardoso

• Ex-VP got it wrong again – Presidency

• Ohanaeze calls for economic team overhaul

By Baba Martins, Abbas Jimoh (Abuja), Abdullateef Aliyu (Lagos) & Nabob Ogbonna (Abakaliki)

Former vice president and presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the last election, Atiku Abubakar, has said the hurriedly put together forex policy of the present administration is responsible for the country’s present state of affairs.

Atiku in a message on his X handle also claimed that even at a meeting called last week to address the foreign exchange crisis and the economic downturn, President Bola Tinubu failed “to showcase any concrete policy steps his administration was taking to contain the currency fluctuation crises and poverty in the country.”

Atiku said instead, Tinubu told the country and experts were giving ideas on how to resolve the crisis that he and his team should not be distracted and allowed time to “continue cooking their cocktail that has brought untold hardship to the people of Nigeria. I don’t agree with that.”

“The government did not allow the CBN the independence to design and implement a sound FX management policy that would have dealt with such issues as increasing liquidity, curtailing/regulating demand, dealing with FX backlogs and rate convergence.

“I firmly believe that if and when the government is ready to open itself to sound counsel, as well as control internal bleedings occasioned by corruption and poorly negotiated foreign loans, the Nigerian economy would begin to find a footing again.”

FG’s reform agenda worsening situation – Catholic bishops

Similarly, the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) has said the reform agenda of President Tinubu has added to the plight of the citizens and is worsening their conditions.

President of the CBCN, Most Rev. Lucius Iwejuru Ugorji, said this at the formal opening of the 2024 First Plenary Assembly of the CBCN at the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria (CSN) Resource Centre, Abuja, on Sunday.

The programme had as its theme, ‘Synod on Synodality: Areas of Concern for the Church in Nigeria’.

Ugorji said with the end of the fuel subsidy regime and the unification of the foreign exchange market, there has been a significant increase in the pump price of petroleum products and a steep decline in the value of the naira, thus increasing the hardship experienced by Nigerians.

Ugorji said rising inflation has made it difficult for the average Nigerian to access basic commodities, including food items and medication.

FG actions paying off – Cardoso

However, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Dr. Olayemi Michael Cardoso, blamed the high inflation rate in the country on so much liquidity in the market.

Cardoso, who was the chairman of the occasion, said despite all the difficulties, there is light at the end of the tunnel, and the effort by the federal government to remove the subsidy on fuel will contribute towards a more positive outcome.

“As a result of some of the recent reports from the CBN, over the course of the last week, about $1.8bn came into the markets. As long as the country can sustain a positive trajectory, Nigeria will get out of its economic woes and the foreign exchange market will begin to moderate itself,” he said.

Ex-VP got it wrong again – Presidency

Mr Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, in a statement, said former V-P Atiku Abubakar,  in an attempt to rubbish the foreign exchange policy of the Tinubu administration, got his facts muddled up again.

The presidential spokesman added that the PDP presidential candidate in the 2023 election also failed to prescribe a better policy option to what Governor Olayemi Cardoso and his team were executing at the apex bank.

“First of all, it was not true that President Tinubu’s meeting last Thursday with the 36 state governors was centred on discussing foreign exchange crisis and currency fluctuation.

“What was discussed in the main was food supply and how to drastically reduce the food prices. The Minister of Information, Alhaji Mohammed Idris, gave a briefing about the meeting, revealing the highlights to State House Correspondents.

“There was no deliberation as former VP Atiku claimed on currency fluctuation. As Alhaji Atiku should know, this is the business of the Central Bank, which has the autonomy to handle the country’s monetary policies.

“It is false and preposterous for Atiku to claim that CBN’s FX management policy was hurriedly put together without proper plans and consultations with stakeholders and that the apex bank is hamstrung by Tinubu’s government in implementing a sound FX Management Policy.

“Alhaji Atiku will agree that the rise in capital inflow suggests massive investors’ confidence in Nigeria and the policy direction of the Tinubu administration,’ the statement added.

Ohanaeze tells president to overhaul economic team

The pan-Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze yesterday urged President Tinubu to overhaul his ‘floundering’ economic team to tackle hardship in the land.

The Secretary-General, Okechukwu Isiguzoro, who called for the recommendation of the 2014 confab to address the looming ‘rebellion’, commended the people of the South East and South South for maintaining calmness in the wake of the nationwide protests against hardship in the land.

In a statement on Sunday, Ohanaeze lamented that the South East has always suffered government’s neglect.

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