President Bola Tinubu has pleadingly, asked protesters of #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria to back down by not allowing their protest shut down economy oxygen currently on the recovering mode.
In his nationwide broadcast address to Nigerians on the day Four of the nationwide protests which has led to the destruction of lives and properties in some selected parts of the country, Tinubu calls for restraints and understanding on the part of protesters not to allow enemies of democracy use them to promote an unconstitutional agenda that will set the country back on her democratic journey.
Reeling out some of the specific actions, investment undertaken by his administration in the aftermath of removal of fuel subsidy and floating of forex exchange, the president was confident the policies and financial commitment would feed through the system in a matter of time.
“In the past 14 months, our government has made significant strides in rebuilding the foundation of our economy to carry us into a future of plenty and abundance.
“On the fiscal side, aggregate government revenues have more than doubled, hitting over N9.1 trillion in the first half of 2024 compared to the first half of 2023 due to our efforts at blocking leakages, introducing automation, and mobilising funding creatively without additional burden on the people.
“Productivity is gradually increasing in the non-oil sector, reaching new levels and taking advantage of the opportunities in the current economic ambience.
“My dear brothers and sisters, we have come this far. Coming from a place where our country spent 97% of all our revenue on debt service; we have been able to reduce that to 68% in the last 13 months.
“We have also cleared legitimate outstanding foreign exchange obligations of about $5 billion without any adverse impact on our programmes. This has given us more financial freedom and the room to spend more money on you, our citizens, to fund essential social services like education and healthcare.
“It has also led to our State, and Local Governments receiving the highest allocations ever in our country’s history from the Federation Account”
“We have also embarked on major infrastructure projects across the country. We are working to complete inherited projects critical to our economic prosperity, including roads, bridges, railways, power, and oil and gas developments.
“Notably, the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and Sokoto-Badagry Highway projects will open up 16 connecting states, creating thousands of jobs and boosting economic output through trade, tourism and cultural integration”, he said.
He said his administration has reversed the low oil production by increasing oil production to 1.61 million barrels per day, while gas assets were receiving the attention they deserve.
He said investors’ apathy had changed, a development that had seen two
Foreign Direct Investments signed for over half a billion dollars since then.
To change Nigera’s old trend of relying on oil and neglecting gas resources, he said his administration immediately launched our Compressed Natural Gas Initiative (CNG) to power our transportation economy and bring costs down.
“The initiative he said,will save over N2 trillion a month, being used to import PMS and AGO and free up our resources for more investment in healthcare and education.
To this end, the president announced distributing of million kits of extremely low or no cost to commercial vehicles that transport people and goods and who currently consume 80% of the imported PMS and AGO.
“We have started the distribution of conversion kits and setting up of conversion centres across the country in conjunction with the private sector. We believe that this CNG initiative will reduce transportation costs by approximately 60 per cent and help to curb inflation.
“Our administration has shown its commitment to the youth by setting up the student loan scheme. To date, 45.6billion Naira has already been processed for payment to students and their respective institution”, he said