Saeed

I want to state this plainly: I support Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Not because I think he is perfect. He isn’t. Not because I dismiss the pain, anger or legitimate grievances of Nigerians who oppose him. I don’t. I support him because, after looking at the problems Nigeria has struggled with for decades, the reforms being attempted, their immediate costs and their potential long-term consequences, I believe the direction is worth supporting. I have thought deeply about this, and I want to explain why. First, I believe we have to be honest about the structural problems Nigeria inherited and has repeatedly postponed confronting. For years, we subsidised fuel, maintained multiple exchange rates, accumulated fiscal pressures and built an economy heavily dependent on oil revenues. These policies had their reasons, and they benefited people in different ways, but I do not believe they were sustainable indefinitely. That is why I support the broad direction of subsidy removal and the foreign exchange reforms. But supporting a reform does not mean pretending its consequences don’t matter. I understand the Nigerian who is angry because transport has become more expensive. I understand the family struggling with food prices. I understand the worker whose salary has not increased at the same pace as the cost of living. Their pain is real. The objective of reform cannot simply be to tell Nigerians to endure hardship because “the economy is improving.” The objective has to be to build an economy where Nigerians eventually experience lower costs because we are producing more, refining more of our crude locally, expanding gas and alternative energy, improving competition, reducing transportation costs, creating jobs and increasing incomes. That is why, for me, the ultimate goal isn’t merely cheap petrol. It is cheap energy, cheaper transportation, productive businesses and rising incomes. I don’t support a permanent fuel subsidy regime because I don’t believe government should indefinitely spend scarce public resources keeping an artificially cheap product cheap while the productive capacity of the economy remains weak. I would rather see Nigeria build an energy system capable of making fuel cheaper because it is cheaper to produce and distribute, not because government is perpetually paying the difference. There is also another part of this conversation that deserves attention: the states. Nigeria is not governed from Abuja alone. Governors are responsible for enormous areas of public service delivery, and their ability to provide roads, schools, hospitals, water and other infrastructure depends heavily on the resources available to them. The reforms have expanded the fiscal space available to subnational governments. I have seen this from my own state, Kano. I support Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf, and I believe the increased resources available to states have created an environment in which governors can do more. Kano’s current budget, for example, places significant emphasis on capital expenditure, with major commitments to education, healthcare and infrastructure. That does not mean Abuja deserves credit for everything happening in Kano. The governor and his administration must still be judged on how intelligently, transparently and effectively those resources are deployed. But it would equally be dishonest to discuss state-level performance without acknowledging the fiscal environment created by federal reforms. ……… continuation 👇🏽

Atiku is now leading the online poll, and suddenly some Obidients have discovered that the same poll they were celebrating when their candidate was ahead is now a “farce” and “rigged.” So the poll was credible when you were winning, but fraudulent the moment you started losing? This is exactly why political tribalism makes rational discourse almost impossible. If the methodology is flawed, criticize it consistently, regardless of who is ahead. Don’t wait for the results to become inconvenient before declaring the entire exercise rigged.