Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour has criticised the Federal Government’s reforms and claims only some select people are benefiting from them.
President Bola Tinubu’s administration has rolled out a raft of reforms since its inauguration in May 2023 including the removal of fuel subsidy and the floating of the naira, the country’s currency.
But Rhodes-Vivour who is the Lagos Labour Party (LP) governorship candidate in the 2023 election said a majority of Nigerians are suffering owing to the moves.
“The people are experiencing unprecedented hardship. Today, over 70 per cent of people’s income is spent on transportation and food. They’ve not even started to think about how they can afford accommodation,” the LP chieftain said on Thursday’s edition of Channels Television’s Politics Today.
“We have a situation where there is a culture of wastefulness, and extravagance that does not reflect the dire economic situation that the same President is pushing out that needs to be reformed.
“The only people that seem to be benefitting from these reforms are maybe the bankers, the people in government, and the President’s friends. How many Nigerians can say they are benefitting from any reform any reform right now?”
Since the removal of fuel subsidy, the cost of the commodity has moved from around N185 to at least N1,000 across the country.
That, coupled with the floating of the naira, saw inflation levels pushing new highs, eating up the value of the currency and moving the cost of essential commodities beyond the reach of millions of Nigerians.
While there have been protests over the rising costs of living including strikes by labour unions who later negotiated a new minimum wage, President Tinubu insists there is no going back on the reforms initiated by his administration.
“We are right in the middle of a challenging stage of our reforms. We have headwinds, no doubt, but we are not going back,” Tinubu said at the State House, Abuja in February 2024 while receiving a delegation from the Corporate Council on Africa (CCA) led by CCA’s President and Chief Executive Officer Florizelle Liser.
The president in several fora called for patience from Nigerians and believes the reforms of his government will pay off soonest.