Tag: Omokri

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu economic reform points to better days ahead, a former presidential aide, Mr Reno Omokri, has said.

 “We should celebrate our recent 3.46% GDP growth, phenomenal 4.3% unemployment rate, record-breaking N5.8 trillion third-quarter trade surplus, revamping of the Port Harcourt refinery, and steady appreciation of the Naira,” he said in a statement yesterday.

Omokri said that despite the short-term pains of the reforms, there was ample evidence that the economy was on a growth trajectory that would assure a better future for Nigerians.

He said the reforms, which cancelled wasteful subsidies on petrol and forex, had freed up more money for the government at national and subnational levels to address the people’s urgent needs, including infrastructure, health, and education.

According to him, Tinubu’s skilful management of the economy led to debt reduction and a quantum improvement in the nation’s foreign reserves, which now stand at over $40 billion.

He urged those still brooding over the outcome of the 2023 presidential election, which produced President Tinubu, to come to terms with the reality of his presidency and cooperate with him to take the nation out of its economic crises.

Commenting on the weekend fall of Syria’s President Bashir Assad despite Russia’s staunch support, he said the incident should teach Nigerians, who waved the Russian flag during the August cost of living protest, that foreign interventionists would always prioritise their national interest.  

“When push came to shove, the Russian government took the most prudent action for their safety. They focused on their war with Ukraine and prioritised it over propping up the Assad regime,” he said, adding, “Moral of the story: Self-interest will always prevail over the interests of your allies.”

Read Also: Omokri tackles Davido, lists ten reasons Nigeria’s economy is not in shambles

Omokri added: “Nigerians should learn from the recent experience and the happenings in our neighbours and accept that regardless of feelings about the outcome of the #NigerianElections2023, democracy is still the best form of government for a multiethnic and religiously heterogeneous nation like Nigeria. At the same time, free-market policies suit our economy.”

Urging them always to seek the deepening of democracy, he pointed at the ongoing chaos in Burkina Faso, where its military dictator fired yet another government amidst soaring inflation and insecurity.

He also cited neighbouring Niger, where the situation had become so difficult that organised crime gangs were controlling parts of the country.

He noted that while West African countries under the Jackboot were experiencing hardships, those under democratic rule, including Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, were stable and enjoying economic prosperity.

“The other democracies of West Africa are doing much better than those that came under military rule,” Omokri stated.

The economy is rebounding because the reforms by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu are already yielding fruits, a former presidential aide has said.

Mr. Reno Omokri, in a statement yesterday, gave statistics of the progress being made.

He urged critics of the government to be more objective and patriotic.

He said: “The reforms are working. Nigeria has had four uninterrupted consecutive quarters of trade surpluses for the first time, meaning that we now export more than we import.

“Nigeria has achieved a new record in its trade balance, with an unprecedented N14.07 trillion trade surplus by half year 2024.”

He explained that the adjustments were necessary to curb the fiscal wastes that benefitted a few businessmen to the detriment of most Nigerians.

Omokri explained: “The reforms in Nigeria were necessary to stop wastage, such as the $1.5 billion used to defend the Naira monthly, the $15 billion expended on fuel subsidy annually, and the wanton importation of products we could manufacture in Nigeria by opportunistic importers.”

Referring to the weekend comment by music icon David Adeleke, aka Davido, that the “Nigerian economy was in shambles,” Omokri said the comment was inaccurate and inappropriate.

He explained that the stock market would be down if the economy were not recovering.

Read Also: Omokri: Tinubu’s government inclusive, not lopsided

“On Thursday, March 28, 2024, the Nigerian Stock Exchange crossed 104,562.06 All Shares Index, a 39.84% increase year-to-date, making it the second-best performing exchange in Africa,” he said.

He referred to the record-breaking outing of another music icon, WIZKID, whose latest album, MORAYO, was released on 22 November. Within 24 hours, he received 12.2 million streams on Spotify Nigeria, evidence that things were looking up in the country.

Omokri argued: “Streaming music is purchased with disposable income. People do not have disposable income in an economy in shambles, not to mention breaking streaming records, especially on Spotify, where the average streaming cost is $10.99 monthly.

“How many singers have broken streaming records in Venezuela or Argentina? Those economies could be said to be in shambles, not Nigeria.”

Omokri recognised that the reforms had come with short-term pains but said the government had rolled out palliative programmes to alleviate the people’s suffering. 

He said: “The reforms have come with some short-term challenges, which are understandable. Nevertheless, steps have been taken to cushion their effect on Nigerians and raise their purchasing power, including increasing the minimum wage by 140% from N30,000 to N70,000, which is probably why our youths had the power to help WIZKID break streaming records.

“For the first time in Nigeria’s history, student loans have also been introduced for students of federal and state-owned tertiary institutions. Conditional cash transfers have been paid and are still being paid to the poorest of the poor.”

Omokri referred Davido to the success of his father, Mr Adedeji Adeleke, in the Nigerian business environment, contending that this could not have happened in a hopeless economy.

“Davido’s father recently testified of the breakthrough in his investments in Nigeria in multiple fields. Mr Adedeji Adeleke gave a good report on how his $2 billion power plant in Nigeria is thriving and has blossomed to the point where he generates 15% of Nigeria’s electricity,” he said, adding, “May God bless him for that testimony, which is at variance and contradicts what his son, Davido, said to the world about Nigeria’s economy being in shambles.”

Omokri urged Davido and other critics to be more objective and patriotic in assessing the country’s situation. “I urge Davido to learn from Rihanna, who never talks down on her country and instead uses her celebrity to promote Barbados and project her positively to the world. Rihanna was named a national hero and cultural ambassador for Barbados in 2018.”

He said: “It is rather disappointing for a young man whose uncle is a governor and should know better. Even worse, he said that to a foreign audience in a foreign country. Davido may have US citizenship, but that does not mean he should de-market Nigeria.”

Restating the need for an objective assessment of the country, he said, “Regardless of anyone’s disposition towards Nigeria’s current leadership, we must understand that leaders come and go, but Nigeria remains. You can attack a leader you do not like or are politically opposed to. But you should never de-market your country. Because even if you have a U.S. passport, your value as a Nigerian, whether in the diaspora or the home front, is tied to Nigeria’s value.

“No matter where you lean on the political divide, you will agree that if a global platform offers itself to you, you should not use it to tell the world that Nigeria’s ‘economy is in shambles’. If you cannot use such a golden opportunity to project Nigeria positively, as Rihanna does for Barbados, refrain from speaking negatively about her.”

A public affairs analyst, Reno Omokri, has described as unworkable the revamp plan recommended by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar as a way out of economic situation of the county

Omokri, a former aide to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan in a statement yesterday said Atiku’s suggestion did not take cognisance of the economic situation that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu met when he took over.

He said the economy’s perilous state, with its crippling debt profile and virtually empty foreign reserves, left the President with no option but to take drastic measures to save the nation from disaster.

In a widely publicised statement on Sunday, Atiku criticised Tinubu’s economic reform policies, saying they left many Nigerians groaning in pain. He explained that he would have adopted a piecemeal approach that would have been less harsh on the populace.

But Omokri said: “Given what the Tinubu administration inherited from the President Muhammadu Buhari government,” he said, “I wonder if that would have been possible.” 

He explained, “Have we forgotten so soon that the Buhari administration illegally borrowed N50 trillion through ways and means and depleted our foreign reserves, leaving behind more debt than all past governments combined?

“The Buhari government claimed to have left a foreign reserve of $37.08 billion, but JP Morgan, our reserve bankers, published a letter stating that our reserves were just $3.7 billion.” 

He said that, faced with these realities, the federal government could not sustain the high-level subsidies for petrol, electricity, and forex, which he estimated at $1 billion, $300 million, and $1.5 billion monthly, respectively.

Omokri explained that the situation was worsened by the over $100 billion monthly debt service, which consumed about 97 per cent of the nation’s revenue, adding that the Buhari government had sold future contracts for Nigeria’s crude oil, meaning that almost nothing came into the treasury for the first six months of the Tinubu administration. 

The former presidential aide also said the former vice president’s suggestion that the President should have emulated Argentina’s President Javier Milei’s reform methods was misplaced, as Argentina’s outcome had been disastrous. 

Read Also: Omokri: Tinubu’s government inclusive, not lopsided

 On 26 February 2024, Atiku wrote, “Both leaders inherited a disoriented economy, but both applied different measures for recovery. President Javier Milei of Argentina was sworn into office on 10 December 2023. He inherited a worse condition than Nigeria’s. But what he did to return his country to a place where investors are ‘starting to believe’ should serve as a lesson to Nigeria’s Bola Tinubu.”

 Omokri responded, “Interestingly, on Friday, 27 September 2024, the world’s preeminent financial and economic medium, The Financial Times, in a headline ‘Argentina’s poverty rate soars above 50% under Javier Milei’ revealed that rather than praise, the Argentine leader is receiving knocks, as his reforms are not achieving the desired results.

“Poverty in Argentina is at its worst rate ever at 57%, and, according to FT, 136,000 jobs have been wiped out since Milei took office.”

 “Additionally, according to the International Monetary Fund, Argentina is now officially in recession as its economy has contracted by 3.5% in the last quarter and inflation hit a world record of 236.7%.”

He told the former vice president that the President was diligently implementing the campaign promises he (Atiku) made, including removal of petrol subsidy, floating of the Naira, and devolution of power, noting that rather than do it piecemeal, Tinubu took the bull by the horn.

This, Omokri said, was yielding immediate results. “Nigeria under Tinubu has experienced two quarters of unprecedented trade surpluses. At the end of August 2024, it had a record-breaking N14.6 trillion trade surplus and a GDP growth of more than 3%, as Nigeria now exports more than it imports. Inflation is being tamed, and the minimum wage has been increased.”

He added, “Next month, for the first time since Major-General Aguiyi-Ironsi abrogated true federalism with his Unification of Assets Decree Number 34 on 24 May 1966, Local Governments will receive their funding directly. This is due to the Tinubu administration’s judicial victory at the Supreme Court on Thursday, 11 July 2024, which granted autonomy to local governments. 

“Our foreign reserves hit a record $40.2 billion because we no longer indulge in the politically popular but economically unreasonable act of defending the Naira with $1.5 billion each month.

“Now, imagine if President Tinubu had taken Waziri Atiku Abubakar’s advice on 26 February 2024, to copy what Milei did. Where would Nigeria be?”

Social commentator, Reno Omokri has tackled the Labour Party presidential candidate in the 2023 elections, Peter Obi, for paying a visit to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.

Omokri in a post on his official X page posted a screenshot of a news report where Peter Obi addressed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as a ‘structure of criminality.”

He wrote in the caption of the post, “And you are now visiting the same “structures of criminality”. What does that make you? “

Read Also: Peter Obi’s claim: My critics should apologise to me now – Reno Omokri

The Nation reported on Monday that Obi visited former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, former President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, and former governor of Jigawa state, Sule Lamido in Abuja.

A public Affairs analyst and one-time presidential spokesman Reno Omokri has spoken on how President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is getting it right with the country’s  security  and the economy.

He also spoke of the programmes of the administration designed to lift the country to higher pedestal.

Omokri, a social media influencer, made his position known in a statement yesterday.

He said: We saw financial and food security restored by proactive security measures. A reflection of the fact that National Security has extended from the nonsensical level of rehabilitating Boko Haram and romancing bandits to a much more intellectual level of preventing discontent amongst the citizenry by ensuring their economic viability.”

He added: “What do the bandit leaders, Ali Kachala, Boderi Isyaku, and Sani Dangote, have in common? The answer is that they have all been killed this year by the Tinubu Administration in security operations organised by National Security Adviser (NSA) Nuhu Ribadu..

“That is why you can now drive from Abuja to Kaduna without being kidnapped. When was the last time you read, heard, or even imagined an abduction on that route? The Abuja-Kaduna trains are safe. The Kaduna airport is secure. We are gradually moving from the dystopia of hundreds of bandits riding with their motorcycles right on the tarmac of the Kaduna International Airport, to a utopia where they are being bombed by air, gunned down by land, and cordoned off in the forests.

Read Also; Nigeria’s security architecture stretched beyond elastic limits, says Tinubu

“Yes, there are still incidences of opportunistic kidnappings and abductions here and there, which my party and I will use against Tinubu if they continue until 2027. We also know that a high incidence of these crimes are self-organised by unpatriotic Nigerians to extort money from their families.”

On the economy, Omokri noted: “First, the economic miracle that the Tinubu administration has pulled off with the floated Naira needs to be studied at ivory towers around the globe. Harvard Business School would have to develop a course to learn and replicate Nigeria’s recent economic revamp.

“Never in the history of human endeavour has a nation’s currency gone from being the worst-performing currency on Earth, to becoming the undisputed best-performing banknote in the world, in the space of just four months.

“How did they do it? Central to this is the National Security Adviser. Yes, his decisiveness against Binance sparked the recovery of the Naira from the price-gouging mafia that operated on that platform. But his clinical surgery on our economy goes beyond that.

“The revocation of the licenses of 4,173 allegedly shady Bureau de Change (BDC) operators , which has reduced speculation against the Naira, also Ribadu’s the brainchild, played a significant role in first stabilising, then appreciating the Naira.”

He listed the achievements of the Tinubu Administration so far, to include:

“The Naira is now the world’s best-performing currency, according to Goldman Sachs.

“In the Northwest, bandits are now being kidnapped themselves by our military and are being tried.

“Every weekday is now a working day in the Southeast.

“Boko Haram is now reduced as a threat in the Northeast.

“The coastal highway (Lagos to Calabar) is becoming a reality, and the Abuja metro is now ready for commissioning.

“Fuel importation had reduced by more than 50%.

“The Dangote Refinery is crashing the price of diesel.

“The Federal Government has negotiated direct Lagos-London flights for Air Peace.

“Our GDP is now grieving at 3.4%

 “Passport shortages are now a thing of the past, as Nigerians now get their passports speedily and with ease.

“Wage support of N35,000 is being paid to all federal employees

“And Nigeria has a trade surplus”