By Majeed Ishola
The Democratic Front (TDF) has accused the former spokesman of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, of exhibiting a poor knowledge of the economy in his recent criticism of the President Bola Tinubu administration.
In a statement signed by its Chairman, Mallam Danjuma Muhammad and Secretary, Chief Wale Adedayo, TDF wondered how a former public official would be so dismissive of the glaring ratings by global economic institutions.
The statement read in part: “It is our view that Hakeem Baba-Ahmed should be ashamed of his negative postulations in his recent interview on Channels Television over what he claimed to be a failed public expectations of President Bola Tinubu’s performance in office.
“We are even more disappointed that Baba-Ahmed, who was the Special Adviser to the President on Political matters until his recent resignation on personal political grounds, was bereft of the basic knowledge and understanding of the nation’s economic challenges.
“This is apparent in his failure to appreciate that it is only through the multiple creation of jobs and concomitant generation of wealth to boost productivity and individual purchasing power in the economy that the current high cost of living in Nigeria can be assuaged.
“As a former Permanent Secretary in the federal civil service, we expect Baba-Ahmed to know that Nigeria was headed for sovereign bankruptcy, on account of many years of unsustainable petroleum subsidy, under an import-trapped stagnated economy that was driven by the arbitrage of multiple exchange rates, before Tinubu’s interventionist reforms rescued the nation in May 2023.
“TDF is astonished by the way the former public officer sounded pedestrian and unknowledgeable by seeking to dismiss the position of global credit ratings agencies and claiming that the economic reforms have not impacted on the standard of living of Nigerians.
“And like every other antagonist of the ongoing reforms, he failed to offer a viable alternative that would ameliorate the economic condition of Nigerians during the period of his interview with Channels Television.
“It is also disconcerting and regrettable that the voluminous increase in federal revenue, which has enabled state and local governments to pay the new minimum wage to millions of workers, and the NELFUND loans that have supported university education for thousands of indigent students, mostly from the same region with Baba-Ahmed means nothing to him.
“Also, we wonder why he ignored the massive investment in agricultural farm mechanisation in Niger and Katsina, which were all made possible by the removal of petroleum subsidy and the harmonization of multiple forex windows, in his estimations of Tinubu’s performance in office.
“Baba-Ahmed and his fellow antagonists of the Tinubu reforms should be enlightened to know that the rating of Nigeria’s economic performances by global rating companies like Moody’s, Fitch, the Financial Times of London and the World Bank are the institutional recommendations that the country requires to elicit the confidence of local and global investors when making their final investment decisions on Nigeria.”
The group urged Baba-Ahmed to look beyond his current politics of personal interest and be objective when engaging issues in the public space.
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