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A video of former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s interview with News Central Television has been trending on social media platforms for the past week. In the interview, the former president, in a veiled reference to the current administration, said Nigeria has a president who came into office without a plan. Yet, the same ‘planless’ president is implementing a bold economic reform programme that Obasanjo initiated and abandoned mid-way.
Twenty years after Obasanjo failed to implement complete downstream deregulation, President Bola Tinubu had the courage of his conviction to implement the policy, redirect the economy, and ensure efficiency in the management of public finance.Despite his foibles and messianic complex, former President Obasanjo is no doubt a remarkable leader. His administration opened the economy and implemented essential reforms that his immediate successor should have continued with.
“Let me inform Nigerians that when government first came up with the deregulation programme, it was endorsed by the NLC and other stakeholders. In fact, the NLC had requested that we call it a “liberalisation” programme. It was thus more a matter of label than of substance.
“If only 30% of these firms had been able to establish and operate private refineries, thousands of jobs would have been created and Nigeria would have been in a position to even export refined oil products. All these benefits and more have been denied to Nigerians by the stop-go approach to the deregulation or liberalisation programme, and only a few Nigerians are benefiting from the prevailing government-controlled system.
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