By Danladi Ahmed
The Democratic Front (TDF) has dismissed claims by the Chairman of the People’s Redemption Party (PRP) Hakeem Baba-Ahmed that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is not in touch with Nigerians regarding the hardship in the country.
In a statement by its Chairman, Mallam Danjuma Muhammad and Secretary, Chief Wale Adedayo, TDF said it expected the former Permanent Secretary to bring his work experience to bear, rather than resort to politics.
“We observed that Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed did not bring his knowledge and experience to bear, as a former Permanent Secretary and Special Adviser to the President on Political Matters, during his chat with Arise Television where he made the erroneous statement about the President’s relationship with the people of Nigeria.
“We reject his claims in their entirety and remind him that all the indices of hardship he hyperbolises in drawing the wrong conclusion about President Tinubu’s responses to the plight of Nigerians were indeed, in existence many years before the President was sworn into office in May 2023.
“Even though we agree that comparing economic data with lived experience may sometimes result in contextualising economic indicators, it is wrong to draw conclusions on the impact of President Tinubu’s economic reforms on Nigerians, the way and manner Baba-Ahmed did, without fair comparative analysis of existing social and economic variables,” it added
TDF noted that Baba-Ahmed thought that petroleum subsidy and the multiple exchange rate regimes constituted major clogs in Nigeria’s economic wheel before he accepted an appointment to serve as Special Adviser to the President on Political Matters.
“On a serious note, Baba-Ahmed will agree that Nigeria’s macroeconomic outlook has improved to the admiration of Nigerians and global economic players even before the commencement of the ongoing war in the Gulf Region. He should have attributed the recent increase in the cost of petrol to the war in Iran, which is not within the control of the Nigerian government or the President.
“The Nigerian economy has successfully evolved around the fundamental principles of Tinubu’s Reforms. What should be on the mind of Baba-Ahmed and his likes, should be the unconditional transmission of economic gains to the ordinary citizens.
“It is not true that the President is out of touch with the plight of Nigerians as wrongly conjectured by Baba-Ahmed. The technocrat/ politician was simply not fair enough to acknowledge the reduction in headline inflation to 15% from 35%, which eventuated in a crash of food prices across the nation, and the ongoing efforts by NELFUND to guarantee university education for indigent students in Nigeria amid a plethora of socioeconomic interventions, before arriving at his faulty conclusions.
“We believe that Baba-Ahmed goofed by ignoring the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) of 2025, which indicated a massive industrial expansion in the manufacturing sector of the economy, a development which has generated employment in the non-oil sector. These are the actual transmitters of economic gains that will alleviate poverty and hardship among the people, which Baba-Ahmed chooses to ignore.
“The domestication of the crude oil refining process has also saved a huge chunk of the nation’s foreign exchange alongside the withdrawal of subsidy from petroleum, combined with the consolidation of national revenue, through Tinubu’s tax reform, has all resulted in humongous accruals to the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC).
“As a former Permanent Secretary in the federal civil service, we expect Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed to know that the sub-national governments have a primary obligation to use the huge allocations given to them in FAAC to ameliorate hardship among Nigerians. And that the Federal Government alone cannot succeed in addressing the challenges of hardship in the country, if the states and local governments disavow their responsibilities to the people.”
The group argued that accusing fingers should rather point at the sub-nationals, not the President.