The presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Adewole Adebayo, has faulted the policies of President Bola Tinubu, saying the lives of Nigerians are not better off since the former Lagos State governor assumed power in 2023.
Adebayo said this while featuring on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, blaming the current administration for not addressing the challenges facing Nigerians, including insecurity.
“The fact of the matter is that no one’s life is better off except those who are in government. [Even] You asking the question knows that your life is no better off in terms of all the economic indicators. I know that my life is not better off, and those of my neighbours are not better off,” he said.
“But I want us to understand something clearly, which is going to give us context so that Mr Morka, or anyone who’s participating in this conversation, will not have a they-versus-us mentality. Let us agree on three fundamental principles.”
Nigerians More Hopeful With Tinubu
However, Morka, who appeared on the same show, said Tinubu’s policies have led to improvement in several sectors.
“I think that Nigerians have every reason to feel more confident about their country and, therefore, more hopeful about the future, because the state of affairs in this country as of 2023 compared to today is actually like comparing night and day,” he said.
Citing the floating of the naira, the APC spokesman said that “as of May 2023, this country was not doing well. All of the fundamental numbers were off.”
“From the exchange rates to just basic living, it was all phantom. A lot of it was phantom, and I say phantom because they were not real; because the distortions in the economy were overwhelming in every facet.
“So it’s difficult to make that comparison between 2023 and 2025 because a lot of what you had then was unreal, and that’s the distortion that this government keeps talking about.
“What this president has done since 2023 is to really tackle the root causes of all of those distortions—whether it was the fuel subsidy or whether it was the crazy arbitrage in the foreign exchange system. None of that was real.
“And so what Nigerians are dealing with today is closer to reality. And when you plan with reality, then you are more likely to actually have outcomes and results that are more realistic, more defensible, and more promising in terms of the future.
“And today, like you said, we’ve gone from $3 billion in our foreign reserves to nearly $50 billion. That counts for something because the world is taking us more seriously today, which is why you see a lot of investment, new investment coming in, in all the sectors, whether it’s oil and gas or other sectors. People are coming in to invest because they have more confidence.”
But when asked, Adewole, who also flew the party’s flag in the 2023 general elections, said the APC cannot blame anyone for the country’s woes as the party has been in power since 2015.
“One, that four years ago or three years ago, 2023 that we’re talking about, all the grim pictures and the bleak statistics that Mr Morka referred to were grim pictures and horror movies — they were written after eight years of APC in government,” he said.
