The special adviser on media and publicity to the President, Ajuri Ngelale, yesterday appealed to Nigerians to continue to support the administration of President Bola Tinubu, stressing that the current economic hardship would soon be over. He said the bold decisions by the president to remove fuel subsidy and float the Naira – actions which are blamed for the current hardship – were necessary reforms aimed at repositioning the economy as well as improving the well-being of Nigeria in the long term. In a Channels Television interview, Ngelale said there appeared to be an unspoken concession among Nigerians that the President was taking the right steps to reset the economy partly because there had not been a major revolt since the reforms started.
He insisted that the reforms so far embarked upon by the current administration were the only way out as the country was headed to a situation where it would have been unable to meet its obligations as a sovereign entity. He said the administration is currently working to resolve underlying issues in the economy, particularly stabilizing the local currency before fixing a new minimum wage to avoid further back and forth on the issue. Ngelale, who spoke on sundry issues said to cushion the effect of the hardship experienced by Nigerians, the government was concluding plans to launch a consumer credit system working with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to lend trillions of naira to Nigerians to boost demand for consumer goods as well as incentivize manufacturers thereby creating jobs. He said the proposed student loans program would also become operational soon.
