The government worked for it, argues ZUBAIR OPEYEMI
That Nigeria’s inflation figures dropped sharply is to many, very surprising to the point that naysayers are openly doubting the authenticity of the figures and reality of the fall. However, we are not surprised because we have been watching the speeches, economic plans and actions which have yielded the present figures,
While some thought we were incurable optimists for believing that the country was actually turning round a recovery bend, the indicators and promises as well as assemblage of the team to handle each task woke in us the glimmer of hope and shafts of light from the end of the tunnel.
The drop in the inflationary rate was so sharp that it enjoyed banner headlines even among detractors of the government. Prior to the drop which stemmed from policy implementations, inflation was at 34.80 per cent but dropped to 24.8 per cent.
Explaining the achievement, the Statistician General of the Federation, Adeyemi Adeniran said that consumer index which measures rate of change in prices of goods and commodities had declined to the present figure.
While he further stated that urban inflation reduced to 26.09 per cent, rural inflation declined to 22.15 per cent which implied general drop in prices of goods and commodities, adding that rebasing which was done in simple terms meant updating the reference year used and changing the “basket of goods and services used to measure inflation” to better reflect current realities on consumer spending pattern. This he said was to ensure that inflation data reflects the economy’s current position and performance.
When for example President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was going round selling his programmes, he travelled abroad last April to address diaspora party members in the United Kingdom; he harped on the need to have hope which he was giving back to Nigerians where he specifically assured them that he had plans to bring down inflation.
“I campaigned on hope and have to rest on that hope and push for that hope for the Joy of everyone of us. The economy is looking good; we have inflation, don’t worry about that, yes we know we have the challenge of inflation, it is okay, we will bring it down. We are re-engineering, our revenue is getting better and we are taking our sovereignty and our respect back around the world. Not that they are doing for us, we are doing it ourselves. Whatever is happening to us we have to solve it by ourselves,” he told the gathering.
He was apparently talking from facts at his disposal; he did not even tell them about the increase in the country’s foreign reserve which hit over $40 billion recently, which is restoring confidence in investors. Indeed, during the sale of bond, it was oversubscribed within days which is a strong indicator that we are going back to where we want to be economically.
While the government at the center is doing all to restore better life to Nigerians, there has to be a buy-in by state governors and local government chairmen for there to be a total trickle-down effect to the remotest villages. There has to be a commensurate and deliberate attempt by other tiers of government to enthrone policies and programmes that are beneficial to the average person.
The Accountability Group also has had reports of people lamenting their loses for hoarding food items and other grains. For example in Kano, Nigeria’s grains capital, a man who stocked 1000 jumbo bags of maize at purchase price of N75,000 per bag was creating artificial scarcity hoping the price would rise so that he will rip off the people. He later discovered that prices of grains in the market had kept falling drastically. When he decided to bring out the bags of maize to sell, the price had dropped to N50,000 per bag.
The man in Kano may not be alone in hoarding food items which means that such Nigerians are creating artificial food inflation. However, it also happened with dollar speculators who were determining the price at which foreign currencies exchanged for the naira and when the government got its act right and the price fell, many licked their wounds.
We appeal to all Nigerians to be patriotic and ease things for the common man to feel the effect of government policies. We are sure Nigerians would not want us to go back into the essential commodities days where soldiers had to break into some warehouses hoarding commodities or the days where the masses marched on palliatives warehouses. We should all be our brother’s keeper by not hoarding in order to make excessive profits.
Another point which has caught the attention of the Accountability group is the grim statistics of budgeting in the country. 2023 figures from the office of National Bureau of Statistics reveal that governors appropriate to themselves budgets that exceed the internal revenues of their states, some to the tune of 200 per cent.
Development can hardly take place under such conditions which means that utilities provision will suffer since monies supposed to be used for it find their ways into offices of governors who always plead true federalism and even argue in courts that a federal agency lacked right to look at their finances.
Such budgetary system that places more money than the states generate in the office of the governor needs to be urgently changed unless they will apply them to public utilities and educational sector.
Some examples may suffice here; the 2025 budget of some states viewed against their 2023 internally generated revenue show disproportionate allocation to the governors’ offices above what the states generate. Oyo State’s allocation to the office of the governor in 2025 is N84.0 billion whereas their IGR in 2023 was N52.75 billion, representing 162 % of the 2023 IGR; Enugu State allocated N49.2 billion to their governor’s office which represents 145 % of 2023 IGR of N33.9 billion; Anambra allocated N46.7 billion to the governor’s office against their 2023 IGR of N33.5 billion which is 139% while Kogi allocated N43.5 billion in 2025 representing 162 % of their 2023 IGR of N26.8 billion.
Borno State allocated N28.2 billion to their governor’s office which represents 145 % of their 2023 IGR of N19.5 billion while Kebbi has N13.4 billion for the governor’s office representing 115% of their 2023 IGR of N11.7 billion.
Accountability Group believes that more money should be freed for development. Governors should feel for the people and have a change of mind to be utilitarian in their approach to governance.
Opeyemi is of the Accountability Group and writes from Abuja
