Gbenga Akinwande is a chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ogun State. The former House of Representatives aspirant speaks with IFEDAYO OGUNYEMI on the state of the country, what President Bola Tinubu can do to revive the economy and other issues.
YOU recently appealed to the national leadership of APC to zone the Ogun State governorship ticket of the party to Ogun West in 2027, do you think other senatorial districts will agree to this?
The thinking in Ogun State today is that there is a need for diversity in leadership. This sentiment is more pronounced in Ogun East and Ogun Central because they believe that they have been at the corridor of power of Ogun State for over three decades. As a result, power, according to their reasoning, must shift to Ogun West. The people of Ogun East and Ogun Central are people who admire justice, equity, and fair-play, and they themselves are rooting for power rotation to Ogun West. Hence, the only obstacle to Ogun West’s aspiration in 2027 is disunity among Ogun Westerners themselves.
You are known as a socio-economic activist, what, in your view, is the way out of the current economic impasse in the country?
Prior to President Tinubu’s inauguration, I made some salient suggestions to the then president-elect on the need to run the nation as a socio-economic enterprise rather than a business enterprise. What informed my suggestion then was the deep poverty in the country, which was made more prevalent by the policies and administrative style of the then outgoing government. There is no doubt that removal of fuel subsidy is necessary, but the issue is that it was not properly planned, and the implementation was ill-timed. To the best of my understanding, this economic hardship will continue for a while, but it will help the country in the long run. While this economic hardship continues, it is pertinent for the government to create relief programmes as applicable in western democracies as suggested in my earlier interview with Sunday Tribune in April 2023.
There is an unannounced global recession presently going on, which is the post economic effect of the COVID-19 debacle, coupled with Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas wars. So, the economic downturns in Nigeria will be for a while. I will suggest that the president restructures his government by reassigning six ministers of states among his current ministers; one minister of state each for all the six regions in the country. These ministers should relocate to the headquarters of their respective regions and work along with the governors there. The tasks before the ministers will be to improve security and to revive the economy of their regions based on the economic powers of these regions as at independence in 1960. For example, reviving the cocoa and coffee plantation in the South-West, the groundnut pyramid in the North, and the palm kernel plantation in the East. While these ministers are working assiduously at their respective regions, the president and his other teams in Abuja could focus on the petroleum and other areas of the economy. This idea, if implemented, will help the country greatly because there are too many people in our urban centres due to the exodus of people from rural areas to the town and cities, who are searching for jobs and survival.
How then can President Tinubu help develop Nigeria’s economy?
As stated earlier, we are in for a tough time, and it will take a long time before the economy can recover. What the president has done so far is bold and courageous, but not properly planned and ill-timed. What we need to do as citizens is to come together, pray for the government; we all need to work hard and endure the suffering for a while. I have once advised President Tinubu to run the country as a socio-economic enterprise, implying a bottom-up approach of leadership and economic policies. I further emphasised the need to open job centres across the 774 local government areas with at least a minimum of three centres in each LGA. The job centres will be able to collate data of the most vulnerable in our society, put citizens on job training, and provide economic stimulus to people and businesses that are struggling most.
I think President Tinubu must reverse some of the policies made so far, particularly the petrol subsidy removal, and constitute a price control mechanism to stop the prices of commodities and foreign exchange rates from skyrocketing. It is also important to open all the land borders to allow inflow of food into the country. It makes no sense for people to be smuggling food into the country and selling them at high prices. Why can’t we open the borders? Because the truth is that there is a food shortage in the country at the moment. Governments at all levels should embark on massive infrastructure projects, particularly road construction, where priority should be given to local contractors with good supervision to ensure high quality standards and engineering best practices. It is important to stimulate the economy now, although we heard that monies were given to the states, but no relief is felt by citizens in the states. So, the president must change the approach of implementing his economic stimulus to the citizens, a good approach is the job centres I mentioned earlier. As a matter of urgency, the Ministry of Interior should open their offices in the 774 local government headquarters, along with the National Population Commission; the job centre offices can be created to enhance further economic stimulus directly to citizens.
