The Chairman of the Independent Media and Policy Initiative (IMPI), Niyi Akinsiju, has urged the Bola Tinubu-led government to ensure that its economic policies directly benefit ordinary Nigerians, especially by making food more affordable.
Tinubu took over office on May 29, 2023, with an ambitious promise to reform the country’s ailing economy and promise a thorough “house cleaning of monetary policy” and fiscal policy.
The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and some experts have commended Tinubu’s boldness in removing subsidies and implementing monetary policy reforms, including harmonising foreign exchange windows.
However, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers report, the policies led to a spike in energy prices and the depreciation of the naira by 98 percent in December 2023.
“Let us (Tinubu’s administration) drive these policies in such a way that they will start impacting the poor people,” he said, citing progress in the agricultural sector and the inflow of both Foreign Portfolio Investment (FPI) and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).
He noted, “As at the last count, in the last two or three years, we’ve had close to 25 policies.”
According to Akinsiju, a key measure of success is the trend in food prices, which he says are starting to show signs of improvement.
“At least the middle indicator of whether they translate is food prices. And we are seeing that declining,” he added.
Contrary to Akinsiju’s view on taming inflation, some experts argue that the deceleration in inflation is linked to the rebasing of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
They also argued that the economic gains are on paper, adding that the reforms are pushing more Nigerians into poverty.
THE WHISTLER reported that Tinubu inherited an inflationary pressure which pushed the Consumer Price Index to 22.22 per cent in April, 2023.
In April, food inflation was 24.61 per cent on a year-on-year basis.
In the last two years, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has recorded little success in taming inflation, which rose to a historic 34.80 per cent in December 2024.
In June 2024, food inflation rose to a record 40.87 per cent.
However, after the rebasing of the CPI, the inflation report by the NBS showed that inflation dropped to 23.71 per cent, which is higher than the 22.22 per cent inherited from former president Muhammadu Buhari.
