By: Ayoade Esther Damola
The African Democratic Congress (ADC’s) attempt to spin a recent report presented at the Agora Policy dialogue indicating a rise of poverty rate of 63 percent from 49 percent as a “damning verdict on this administration’s economic policies”, speaks either to its shocking ignorance of economic policy or its willful blindness to the justification for, and transformative impacts of, ongoing economic reforms.
Even the report that the ADC sought to cheaply politicize was categorical about the imperative of the reforms meant to correct age-long and crippling structural distortions in the economy, a statement by Felix Morka, APC National Publicity Secretary stated.
Morka noted that it was obvious that ADC was yet to come to terms with the fact that it is a political party.
“Clearly, the ADC does not recognize itself as a political party. The ADC has not articulated a single alternative policy position or prescription of benefit to Nigerians. Condemning the APC and its policies has become its operating manifesto with absolutely nothing to offer by itself or by its power mongering leaders. The ADC continues to wallow in the idea that its empty attacks will somehow endear the party to Nigerians. But Nigerians are, by far, smarter than that. They know the Party that’s working for them and those that are only shooting the breeze and disturbing the airwaves like the ADC.”
Morka explained that fuel subsidy removal represents one of the most consequential fiscal policy decisions in the country’s recent history. For decades, the fuel subsidy regime placed a devastating burden on public finances, gulping trillions of Naira, upwards of 90 percent of total revenue, annually while delivering limited benefits to ordinary Nigerians. In reality, fuel subsidy regime enabled widespread inefficiencies, corrupt and fraudulent dealings, large-scale fuel smuggling across borders, enriched middlemen and import cartels to the detriment of Nigerians. The regime was a gaping fiscal hole that drained resources that are now being redirected to vital sectors such as infrastructure development, education, healthcare and social development under the present APC-led administration.
