By Abdulfatah Babatunde
The Democratic Front (TDF) has critiqued the World Bank for attempting to use President Olusegun Obasanjo’s regime as the benchmark for validating President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Economic Agenda.
TheNewsZenith reports that TDF, however, noted it agreed with some of the bank’s submissions.
TDF insisted that the two scenarios were completely different and that the World Bank was wrong in its assessment of the reforms of former President Olusegun Obasanjo between 2003 and 2007.
In a statement, TDF Chairman, Mallam Danjuma Muhammad and Secretary Wale Adedayo agreed with the Bank on the Tinubu reforms.
The group, however, said it does not see any basis for comparison with the Obasanjo reforms.
“We align with the views expressed by the bank’s Vice-President, Indermit Gill, at the Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG) in Abuja.
“Gill spoke on the need for Nigeria to stay the course of the current economic reforms for the next 15 years and avoid the temptation of quick fixes.
“But we boldly express our rejection of his rating of former President Obasanjo’s economic reforms of 2003-2007.
“Former President Obasanjo’s administration indeed built the foreign reserves from $4.99 billion in 1999 to $43.17 billion in 2007. We acknowledge it as a good development.
“But the impact of that huge reserve on addressing the nation’s myriad socio-economic challenges was intangible and poor.
“This is given the inability of the government to respond adequately to major economic and infrastructural challenges in the country.
“We believe that the success of any economic reform should be determined by its successful responses to the fundamentals of sustainable economic growth and development.
“This notable failure characterised the Obasanjo reforms between 2003 and 2007.
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“We recall that Obasanjo-era recorded high sales in crude oil better than the period under the military governments before it.
“The civilian governments that took over from the military, as a result of the oil boom in the wake of the U.S. invasion of Iraq after the Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center.
“Despite the oil sales boom within the period, the Nigeria power sector, a key economic element, was in a coma. It expended over $16 billion to generate less than 2000 MW of electricity.”
It stated further that Obasanjo’s agricultural performance was dismally low, as the nation recorded a higher food import bill.
“Billions of naira were wasted on a cassava revolution that yielded little or no value to Nigeria’s agro-economy.
“The period which the World Bank Vice-President spoke so glowingly about, was even more tragic for Nigeria’s oil refining potentials.
“State-owned refineries went dead with no significant effort to revive them.
“Neither did the government encourage private ownership of domestic refineries. This is unlike what President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is currently doing.
“As a response to the shortage of petroleum products in the country, the Obasanjo administration, which earned the highest foreign exchange in the Gulf War period, simply expended the same forex in massive importation of petrol.
This went on through an opaque and corrupt subsidy regime to the neglect and detriment of socio-economic and infrastructural development.
“We, therefore, want to encourage the World Bank to remain supportive of the ongoing economic reforms by the present administration.
“The bank should rather desist from making the Obasanjo economic reform of 2003-2007, a benchmark for the courageous and result-oriented reforms of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.”
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