By Damiete Braide
The pan-Nigerian social welfarist group, Afenifere, has urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to reconsider his approach in tackling the economic situation in the country, stating that his response during the Patriot Group’s visit to Aso Rock Villa does not really weigh in the direction of people’s expectations.
The group in a statement by the National leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, signed by the National Publicity Secretary, Prince Justice Faloye, stated that Afenifere is alarmed by President Tinubu’s response to the Patriots group visit, demanding that he should tackle the restructuring deal with a holistic approach.
Afenifere mentioned that the President in his response had said that he wants to focus on his economic reforms and the attendant economic hardship enabled by fiscal and monetary policies that were not well conceived and without any synergy, before attending to Restructuring which in itself is the foundation for economic growth recovery and other multifaceted challenges in our polity.
Afenifere, therefore, implores the President to reconsider his strategy, saying that what is required is a holistic approach that tackles from the roots, simultaneously, and not just economic and political reforms and palliatives, but complete economic and political restructuring.
The group urged the President to adhere and apply workable methods that include, re-establish a new social contract with optimized political and economic responsibilities and far reaching fundamental economic and political Restructuring, rather than mere reforms tackling our economy with indices and absolute figures.
Other solutions as pointed by Afenifere are instituting an emergency comprehensive infrastructural development programme involving building in three years at least, 5000 kilometers of railway, (Lagos-Calabar, Ilorin-Yola and Sokoto-Maiduguri), massive low cost housing and solar energy panels, while simultaneously engaging on constitutional amendments towards devolution of power to empower federating units, traditional politics and local production, with a social contract with the unemployed masses to optimize and sustain the new economic infrastructure.
The group therefore noted that for a fair, productive and prosperous corporate existence as a nation, political and economic solutions must be designed and implemented simultaneously, with our political structures based on a new social contract dictated by economic and sociopolitical demands.