By Zubair Opeyemi
That Nigeria’s inflation figures reportedly dropped sharply is to many, very surprising to the point that naysayers are openly doubting the authenticity of the figures and reality of the fall. However, we are not surprised because we have been watching the speeches, economic plans and actions which have yielded the present figures. While some thought we were incurable optimists for believing that the country was actually turning round a recovery bend, the indicators and promises as well as assemblage of the team to handle each task woke in us the glimmer of hope and shafts of light from the end of the tunnel.
The drop in the inflationary rate was so sharp that it enjoyed banner headlines even among detractors of the government. Prior to the drop which stemmed from policy implementations, inflation was at 34.80 per cent but dropped to 24.8 per cent.
Explaining the development, the Statistician General of the Federation, Adeyemi Adeniran said that consumer index which measures rate of change in prices of goods and commodities had declined to the present figure. He further stated that urban inflation reduced to 26.09 per cent, rural inflation declined to 22.15 per cent which implied general drop in prices of goods and commodities, adding that rebasing which was done in simple terms, meant updating the reference year used and changing the “basket of goods and services used to measure inflation” to better reflect current realities on consumer spending pattern. This he said was to ensure that inflation data reflects the economy’s current position and performance.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had last April, while addressing diaspora party members in the United Kingdom harped on the need to have hope. He specifically assured them that he had plans to bring down inflation.
“I campaigned on hope and have to rest on that hope and push for that hope for the joy of every one of us. The economy is looking good; we have inflation, don’t worry about that, yes we know we have the challenge of inflation, it is okay, we will bring it down. We are re-engineering, our revenue is getting better and we are taking our sovereignty and our respect back around the world. Not that they are doing for us, we are doing it ourselves. Whatever is happening to us we have to solve it by ourselves,” he had told the gathering.
He apparently spoke to the facts: the increase in the country’s foreign reserve which, only recently hit over $40 billion, thereby restoring confidence of investors; the oversubscription of the bonds, a strong indicator that we are going back to where we want to be economically.
Unfortunately, while the government at the centre is doing all to restore better life to Nigerians, there has to be a buy-in by state governors and local government chairmen for there to be a total trickle-down effect to the remotest villages. There has to be a commensurate and deliberate attempt by other tiers of government to enthrone policies and programmes that are beneficial to the average person.
This regrettably is not the case. For example in Kano, Nigeria’s grains capital, a man reportedly stocked 1000 jumbo bags of maize at purchase price of N75,000 per bag thus creating artificial scarcity hoping the price would rise so that he will rip off the people. He later discovered that prices of grains in the market kept falling drastically. Only then did he decide to bring out the bags of maize to sell, during which the price had dropped to N50,000 per bag.
The individual is certainly not alone in hoarding food items which means that such Nigerians are creating artificial food inflation. However, it also happened with dollar speculators who were determining the price at which foreign currencies exchanged for the naira.
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One can only appeal to all Nigerians to be patriotic and ease things for the common man to feel the effect of government policies. We are sure Nigerians would not want us to go back into the essential commodities days where soldiers had to break into some warehouses hoarding commodities or the days where the masses marched on palliatives warehouses. Nigerians should all be their brother’s keeper by not hoarding in order to make excessive profits.
Another point of interest which has caught the attention of Nigerians is the grim statistics of budgeting in the country. The 2023 figures from the office of National Bureau of Statistics reveal that governors appropriate to themselves budgets that exceed the internal revenues of their states, some to the tune of 200 per cent.
Development can hardly take place under such conditions which means that utilities provision will suffer since monies meant to be used for development find their ways into maintaining the offices of governors who often plead true federalism and even argue in courts that a federal agency lacked right to look at their finances. Such budgetary system that places more money than the states generate in the office of the governor needs to be urgently addressed.
Some examples will suffice; the 2025 budget of some states viewed against their 2023 internally generated revenue show disproportionate allocation to the governors’ offices above what the states generate. Oyo State’s allocation to the office of the governor in 2025 is N84.0 billion whereas their IGR in 2023 was N52.75 billion, representing 162 % of the 2023 IGR; Enugu State allocated N49.2 billion to their governor’s office which represents 145 % of 2023 IGR of N33.9 billion; Anambra allocated N46.7 billion to the governor’s office against their 2023 IGR of N33.5 billion which is 139% while Kogi allocated N43.5 billion in 2025 representing 162 % of their 2023 IGR of N26.8 billion.
Borno State allocated N28.2 billion to their governor’s office which represents 145 % of their 2023 IGR of N19.5 billion while Kebbi has N13.4 billion for the governor’s office, representing 115% of their 2023 IGR of N11.7 billion.
One believes that more money should be freed for development. Governors should feel for the people and have a change of mind to be utilitarian in their approach to governance.