Erstwhile Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has asked President Bola Tinubu to adopt his Argentine counterpart, Javier Milei’s reforms and stop blaming opposition parties and his predecessor for the nation’s woes.
In a statement titled: ‘Argentina’s Javier Milei approach to reforms should serve as a lesson for Tinubu’, the presidential standard-bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 polls said both Presidents Milei and Tinubu took over last year and inherited disoriented economies, but applied different measures of recovery.
According to the statement he issued yesterday, the Wazirin Adamawa said what Milei did to return his country to a place, where investors are ‘starting to believe’, should serve as a lesson to Tinubu.
Abubakar said unless and until there are clear-cut policies and pathways to economic rejuvenation, predicated on a leadership-led sacrifice, there would be discontentment, especially among the youths, which might find expression in protests, and for which it will be “silly to continue to blame the opposition for.”
He observed: “I read a recent report in the Reuters titled: Argentina’s market double down on Milei as investors ‘start to believe’.
“I took a keen interest in reading the report because I know quite well that Argentina and Nigeria closed the last quarter of Year 2023 on a similar path of economic downturn.
“In the case of Nigeria, a new government was installed at or about the middle of 2023, for Argentina, the new government came on board in December.
“Both leaders inherited disoriented economies, but both applied different measures to recovery.
“President Javier Milei of Argentina was sworn into office on December 10, 2023. He inherited a worse condition than Nigeria’s.
“Nigeria is where we are today simply because of what Tinubu has done or did not do.
“His shifting the blame to the opposition and, even ridiculously, his predecessor, is needless and myopic. Market forces don’t play politics. They respond to your actions and inactions.
“President Milei’s major campaign promise was to re-position the Argentine economy after years of slow growth, high debt levels, triple-digit inflation (160 per cent when he took over the presidency in December 2023) and 40 per cent poverty rate.
“His first task was to begin implementing measures to achieve greater macroeconomic stability and promote higher global competitiveness.
“He came into the office with a comprehensive stabilisation plan, which seeks to implement far-reaching measures within the context of a market-oriented economy.”
The Adamawa native argued that the reforms so far implemented by the Tinubu administration are ad hoc and hurriedly put together without proper review.
Abubakar continued: “Ours is unlike Argentina’s Milei, who is sequencing his reforms.
“President Milei anticipates the after-reform shocks and admits that things will be tough for the people. But he is fully prepared for the aftershocks and has in place mitigating pills.
“He walks the talk. He makes sacrifices himself by giving up perks of office.
“It is not business-as-usual for the presidency, while the people are called upon to make sacrifices.
“Argentina runs a lean government by reducing the number of ministries, privatising nearly 40 state-owned enterprises, and reducing wasteful spending.
“Conversely, Tinubu, in Nigeria, increased the number of ministers and ministries and is spending enormous resources renovating houses for himself, his deputy and the First Lady. That is nothing short of Nero playing fiddle, while Rome is on fire!
“Worse still, Tinubu has refused to roll up his sleeves and do the work that he signed up for. Instead, he and his team are preoccupied with behaving like Napoleon and Squealer, characters in the satire book, Animal Farm, who made it a state policy scapegoating Snowball (the opposition) for their own failures arising from their ill-advised policies.”
The ex-Vice President said he was attracted to the reforms in Argentina because Milei’s stabilisation plan bears a similar emblem to his Recover Nigeria Plan.
