Why President Tinubu deserves our support, by Kayode Oyedeji

Nigeria has a poverty problem that has endured for decades. He inherited a food crisis that he is doing well to address by ensuring adequate food supply. His determination is to ensure that food is available and affordable.

He inherited infrastructural crises. No good road anywhere. Building infrastructure requires massive capital beyond what routine budgets of tokenism can provide.Nigeria is a poor bit potentially rich country.

He is deploying a creative solution that includes cheap borrowing and deployment of private equity to do some extraordinary works like Lagos-Calabar and Lagos Badagry. Everywhere you go now, David Umahi is building a road that should have been built some decades ago.

Yes, Nigeria has a poverty problem. How does he fix that? His core strategy is to empower the Sub- Nationals to operate at full, optimum capacity, engender cooperation among tiers of government and between government and the private sector.

The nation has an educational crisis. Education is on the concurrent list. In the North, and in other parts of the country, the problem is mainly about the foundation. Public education has collapsed at the foundational level. Tinubu is not in charge of primary education. Once a child misses primary education, he can hardly make up for it. 90% of those who miss primary education are automatically unable to access any form of education afterward. That is a major problem in the North. They move on to join extremism. In the South, they move into all kinds of illicit activities too.

Tinunbu is sadly not in charge of primary education. The States and the Locsl Councils are. Nigeria has a challenge . That challenge is not a Tinubu challenge perse. States and local governments must take responsibility for elementary education and fund it sufficiently.

Tinubu is improving on the quality of tertiary education, ensuring academic stability and improvement in funding. Age-long disagreement with the Academic Staff Union of Universities has now been largely resolved. He has now introduced NELFUND, preparatory to full University Autonomy. But the problem of education can not be solved at the apex level. It has to be tackled from the foundation. It is not a Tinubu’s crisis. It is that of the complicated federal system we operate.

How do we get the States and LGs to appropriately fund education at the lower level? What do they use their allocation and intervention funds for?

Empowering the Sub-National governments has been the current government’s major strategy. His major policies and reforms are tailored towards making sure that States and Local Goverments are empowered.

Removal of fuel subsidy has led to an increase by about 500% in States Revenue. States must be made to account for the homonghous revenue they now earn.

States and LGs earn about 90% of VAT proceeds. The New Tax Law will lead to windfall from Personal Income Tax. Tinubu faces the music, but governors reap the windfall. As the States are reaping heavily, the Local Governments are harvesting huge sums of money. State governments are the major beneficiaries of the new tax laws. They harvest all Personal Income Tax and get a good chunk of Corporate Tax from the Federation Account. Tinubu has empowered the Sub-Nationals more than any government in Nigerian history.

The President is now fighting for Local Councils to have financial autonomy so that the Councils, along with their local communities and leaders, can determine local priorities and appriopriate their respurces to achieve it.Tinubu understands development. Statesmanship and leadership.

What Timubu is doing is to consolidate the positive energy of Nigerians to achieve acclerated growth and development. However, he must deal with the bad optics of his reforms.

President Tinubu must address what is appearing like fatigue in his government. He must also deal with the problem of prolifgacy and corruption in government at all levels to win citizens’ commitment. He needs the understanding and support of Nigerians to address our fundamental challenges.

–Oyedeji is a banker and an economist