Joel Ajayi

The Special Adviser, Media and Public Affairs to President Bola Tinubu to Chief Sunday Dare has echoed that President Tinubu’s economic reforms, though seemingly harsh, but is putting Nigeria’s on the progress

Chief Dare defended President Bola Tinubu‘s economic policies, maintaining that the ongoing reforms have stopped Nigeria from haemorrhaging due to years of mismanagement by previous administrations

Former Minister of sports and youth development, Dare who spoke on Arise Television on Thursday night, said that the country was losing as much as $7.5 billion annually to fuel subsidy before the intervention of the current administration.

Urging Nigerians to hold their governors accountable for the huge revenues now available to them, Dare stated that from N760 billion in 2023, the 36 states and the federal government now share as much as N3.2 trillion monthly.

According to him,sometimes, if you refuse to take the stitch you need in time, you have to take so many stitches down the road. This country was haemorrhaging. This country was on a sliding slope. And at that point, we needed to apply certain brakes.

“At the point he (Tinubu) came in, two brakes were necessary. You look at 30 years of this country skirting around subsidy removal. We’re hemorrhaging $7.5 billion every year. We had a period in which 87 Nigerian companies and individuals were declared wanted for corruption, having to do with subsidy scam.

“And then we went back into that same subsidy process. But then we have seen the removal of subsidy. The resources that have been freed up for human capital development, and one part that is really poignant is the fact, in 2023, N760 billion, that was the FAAC that was shared by the 36 states and the federal government.

“As of 2024, that moved up to N3.2 trillion. Now, when it comes to governance, there’s the federal government, there’s the sub-national. Every month, these monies are shared. It has tripled to the state government. So, subsidy has freed up resources. If subsidy was not removed, we would not have it go up to 3.2 trillion,” he maintained.

Still in defence of subsidy removal, Dare argued that if it was not removed, the Dangote, Warri and Port Harcourt refineries would never have come alive.

He explained that the president was also providing buffers to poor and vulnerable Nigerians to reduce the impact of the harsh economic policies.

“As we speak, for over 5.3 million households, over N197 billion has gone out. As we speak, N75,000 will go to about 17 million poor Nigerians. Now, these are what we also see in advanced countries,” he observed.

On the question of spending more funds on servicing debts than carrying out capital projects, Dare noted that Tinubu has been paying the debts accumulated by four previous presidents.

“We have moved from spending 91 per cent of our revenue servicing debt to 62 per cent. That’s one. Two, we’ve also seen this president, President Bola Tinubu, has been repaying in the last one year plus, the loans inherited by four previous presidents, because government is a continuum.

“There’s a way if this debt hangs on, the economy cannot breathe. Some of the revenue and resources coming in is used up to pay almost 16 different loans inherited by previous governments,” he asserted.

However, he noted that the government has the responsibility to justify whatever loan it takes, explaining that whatever loans are taken, there’s a responsibility on the part of governments to use them for the reasons they’re taken.

“And we have a president that has committed to that. That whatever loans that we take, we’re going to apply them to the projects and policies that we put forward. A robust tax system is not just about collecting revenue, but fair distribution of resources,” he added.

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