INTERVIEW: Tinubu running youth-centric government, says Onanuga

Bayo Onanuga, special adviser to the president on information and strategy, in this interview with TheCable’s TEMIDAYO AKINSUYI, responds to some criticisms from the opposition on President Bola Tinubu’s administration.

TheCable: Babachir Lawal, former secretary to the government of the federation (SGF), said the hasty decision taken by Tinubu in the removal of fuel subsidy is largely responsible for the hardship being experienced by Nigerians. How do you respond to that?

Onanuga: Is Babachir still talking? Well, that is his opinion that the subsidy was hastily removed. The truth is, the subsidy was meant to be removed by the end of June 2023 according to what Former President Muhammadu Buhari left behind. President Tinubu only announced it on May 29 on the day he was sworn-in. That is to show you that something is wrong somewhere and that the nation had a problem at that time.

What I find out is that Nigerians easily forget things. We have short memory about things. They should cast their minds back to what happened at that period. The NNPCL was saying government was owing them N4 trillion of subsidy money. NNPCL was the only importer of fuel and towards the general election, fuel scarcity was all over the country.

Due to the scarcity, in some places, fuel was selling for about N700 – N800 before President Tinubu was sworn in. NNPCL didn’t have money to import fuel because they were being owed over N4 trillion by the federal government. People have easily forgotten about that. Tinubu knew the problem and that was why he made the announcement on the day of his inauguration. The language he used was ‘subsidy is gone’ because even in the budget, there was no provision for it.

I will challenge journalists to go and check that budget. When you look at that budget made by Buhari before leaving office, you will find out that aside no provision for subsidy, 97 per cent of our income will be spent on servicing debts. If 97 per cent of budget is used to service debts, what is left for Nigerians to spend? That 97 per cent budgeted for debt servicing does not include the money the federal government owe the NNPCL. There were serious problems then and Tinubu just needed to do something quickly to arrest the deterioration.

You can see what has happened in the last nine months with those measures he took. Yes, those measures are painful but they are needed to reset the economy and financials of this country. Otherwise, we would have ended up in a much more disastrous situation.

TheCable: The government has announced plans to ameliorate the suffering of Nigerians but the opposition believes that nothing seems to be working. Do you think the measures put in place by the federal government is achieving the right objectives?

Onanuga: The opposition can say nothing has worked but we can see some light already. For instance, the foreign exchange market is being stabilised. In the last one week or so, sanity has been restored in all these crazy movements of the naira in the black market.

On the food situation, from the reports we are gathering across the country, prices of foodstuffs are not going up; they are going down. The major problem is that people don’t have enough disposable income. What the government is doing, at least to all federal workers, is to pay them N35,000 up till April. Even some states are also giving wage awards.

It is clear that many people are crying about food prices because they don’t have enough money to spend. That is why the federal government and some states are making wage awards. Look at Ogun state. The governor has rolled out palliatives worth N5 billion for households in the state. Lagos state has also announced a series of measures. In Ekiti, the state government also announced N5,000 palliatives for 10,000 households. In Borno state, the governor recently raised the number of households being targeted for palliatives from 300,000 to 400,000. I can go on and on. Most of them are making efforts to ensure that the workers have money to survive while others are also assisting the citizens.

The federal government is making efforts to boost food supply. We issued a statement recently to tell Nigerians the state of government effort on the 2,000 metric tonnes of grains and the 60,000 expected from rice millers. The Nigerian Customs is also selling seized 25kg bags of rice at N10,000. A lot of things are being done to cushion the effects of the hardship and make sure Nigerians don’t suffer.

TheCable: The opposition is saying many Nigerian youths are fleeing the country in droves because the APC, especially this government, has no plans for them. How will you react to that?

Onanuga: If they are saying that, it means they haven’t been following the many lofty programmes this government has for Nigerian youths. For instance, the government will soon roll out the student loan scheme. In addition to that, the government is not only giving students in the universities and polytechnics loans, it is extending it to vocational institutions, that is people who didn’t attend tertiary institutions but who want to learn some skills outside of the university system. The original plan was to give the loans to students in the tertiary institutions but the president said, ‘No, let us extend the loans to those in vocational institutions.’

In addition, the president has said he is going to give unemployment benefits to graduates who are yet to get jobs. The government is doing a lot for young Nigerians. For example, look at what the ministry of communications and digital economy is doing. They are training three million Nigerian youths on IT skills. Once this training is completed, they become certified by Google and other IT certifying bodies and they will be linked up with institutions here in Nigeria or abroad that will employ them based on their skills.

This initiative aligns with President Bola Tinubu’s objective to create a million tech jobs within his first two years in office. So, how can somebody say that a government that is doing this does not like the youths of Nigeria?

Also, the ministry of trade has a programme for training 10 million artisans in two years. These artisans would be trained under the skill-up artisans programme (SUPA) facilitated by the Industrial Training Fund (ITF). Aside that, the government is targeting another one million jobs in a talent exchange programme where artisans from Nigeria can get jobs abroad. You will agree with me that if you are a welder, plumber, electrician, you need good training in order to deliver excellent jobs to people.

The ministry of trade is also planning to set up job centres for young Nigerians. The president created the ministry of youth and also created ministry of sports separately. Before now, these two ministries were fused together but he decided to separate them so that individual attention can be given to the youths and sports. Is that an indication that the president does not like the youths? Those saying the president has no plans for the youths don’t know what they are talking about. I must admit that this government is youth-centric. It has a bias to help the Nigerian youths.

TheCable: Is there anything Nigerian youths can learn from Tinubu?

Onanuga: His story should inspire people, not just the youths but all Nigerians. This is a person who was able to overcome all manners of challenges and now finds himself at the pinnacle of governance in Nigeria. That is an inspiring story not just for youths but generally all Nigerians.