APM appoints Hyat, Inna Chiroma, others into presidential...
Presidential candidate of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) and Governor of Oyo State, Seyi Makinde, has appointed Felix Hassan Hyat as Director-General of the...
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has likened Nigeria’s economic condition in 2023 to that of a cancer patient, saying his administration had to undertake painful reforms to confront deep-rooted economic problems.
Tinubu made the comparison in his Independence Day address to Nigerians, in which he defended the economic policies implemented by his administration since assuming office in 2023.
The President said Nigeria entered 2023 at a point when poverty was rising and hope was “nearly gone”, leaving his administration with what he described as no choice but to act.
He said the country’s situation was similar to a patient who had been diagnosed with cancer and faced a difficult choice between undergoing painful treatment or taking morphine to temporarily suppress the pain while allowing the disease to spread.
“Nigeria was like a sick patient who receives the terrible news that he has cancer,” Tinubu said.
According to him, previous governments had for too long opted for the equivalent of “morphine” instead of confronting the underlying problems affecting the economy.
“For too long, Nigeria's leaders chose morphine while praying for a miracle that never came,” he said.
Tinubu said successive administrations had focused on symptoms while allowing deeper economic problems to worsen.
He argued that huge sums had been spent sustaining inefficient arrangements that were never designed to last, while difficult economic decisions were repeatedly postponed and their consequences passed to future generations.
‘We chose to excise the cancer’
The President said his administration took a different approach when it assumed office.
“When this Administration assumed office, we resolved to do things differently. We chose to excise the cancer,” he said.
Tinubu acknowledged that the reforms that followed had been difficult and that Nigerians had experienced their “side effects”, but argued that the hardship associated with the reforms should not be confused with the underlying economic problems they were intended to address.
“Our reforms did not create the weaknesses in our economy. They confronted them,” he said.
He also criticised calls to reverse the reforms and return to what he described as an “abuse of addictive subsidies”, urging Nigerians to remember why the reforms were introduced.
The President's defence of subsidy reform echoes his July 2023 national broadcast, in which he argued that fuel subsidy had become too costly and that the multiple exchange-rate system had encouraged currency speculation.