A former member of House of Representatives, Hon. Bamidele Faparusi, has called for solidarity and prayers for President Bola Tinubu.
According to him, the President does require protests to fix the nation but the support of the people.
Engr. Faparusi who was also the Director General of a frontline Tinubu support group, National Unity Movement for Bola Ahmed Tinubu (NUMBAT) also advised the Federal government to “control inflation through the reduction of FAAC sharing instead of the regular increase in the interest rate by the CBN.”
Faparusi in a statement in Abuja, said, “Tinubu is fighting against economy saboteurs who have turned to principalities and powers. The economic problem we face today is the accumulation of financial recklessness of previous administrations, the present economic woo is inevitable and it is better we face it now and move on.
“Yes, it is painful, it will always be painful but we should commend Tinubu for choosing the path of holistic solution rather than cosmetic approach of previous administration. I don’t see any present leader aside Tinubu that has the audacity to confront the years of economic decay knowing that doing so will bring immediate pain. Fearless steps to end official graft.
“The problem with our economy is that there are principality and powers who derive gains by sabotaging every good policies of the government. This principalities and powers are politicians, top civil servants, top businessmen , bankers and so on. The battle the president is fighting is against these powerful individuals and corporations who control the dark economy.”
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According to him, sharing all of the savings from the fuel subsidy removal at FAAC is a strong contributor to inflation and devaluation of Naira.
He said these funds are “siphoned into the dark economy by corrupt government officials, businessmen, banks alike.”
“Social intervention is necessary if we can remove the propensity of corruption associated with its implementation,” he said.
Faparusi further opined that, the new Minimum Wage should be implemented at least to take away funds available to be stolen by the privileged few, which will be used to hunt dollars.
Adding that, the CBN should place restrictions on buyer of Forex and not on sellers. “We need liquidity in the forex market, the new policy of restrictions on forex inflow will be counterproductive, our forex problem is high demand, and this excessive demand is mostly from corruption proceed.
“The policy should read ‘buyers of $10000 and above must declare their source of funds (Naira)” instead of the restrictions placed on sellers by the new CBN regulations.”
He however disclosed that, the three main economic issues Nigeria has been battling with over the last three decades have been corruption, fuel subsidy regime and poorly regulated Forex market.
The combination of these three issues, he said can be responsible for other vices like insecurity, lower standard of living, reduced FDI, etc.
To this, he ask, “Why blame Tinubu for choosing the clear accumulated mess of his predecessors? Majority of Nigerian agreed that the mess of fuel subsidy, chronic corruption and the poorly regulated forex have to be cleared.
“But the question is when and how. Nigeria elected President Tinubu to answer the questions of when and how. And Tinubu answer to when is now, yes, not everyone agreed but I do agree that we must confront this problems now. If you ask me, if I agree with the how it say, No.
“I believe that the application of savings from the subsidy removal is responsible for the uncontrollable inflation we are experiencing, the savings are passed on the Federal, State and Local through FAAC. We all know how endemic corruption is at the sub-national level where some governors handle state treasuries like personal account.
“The fuel subsidy savings are siphoned into the dark economy and this free funds end up to be used to buy up dollars putting undue pressure on Naira, or how do we explained the increased FAAC sharing of over 100% and yet no state has increased the salary of its workers, some states has refused to clear the backlog of salary, pension and gratuity of workers.
“Like Tinubu always say, “don’t pity me, I beg for the job”. Yes Tinubu don’t need our pity but solidarity, encouragement and prayers,” he said.
