Nigeria Has Not Been Harder Than This – Ex-Lagos Guber Candidate, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour Speaks

Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, a former Lagos State governorship candidate, on the platform of the Labour Party, has decried hardship in the country under the current administration.

Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivor said while the government continued to lament bankruptcy they continued to spend on luxury.

He stated this on Thursday in an interview with News Central. He noted that the citizens of the country are going through hardship as a result of the government’s bad implementation of subsidy removal.

He explained that the removal of fuel subsidy was right, but should not have been instant.

Gbadebor emphasized that policies to cushion the effects of subsidy removal ought to have been carefully and sincerely implemented.

“The policies are not well thought out. They are not bad policies. We have to stop paying subsidy because we find that we are subsidizing a whole looting mechanism. The amount of products that we actually demand, a lot of these products that we are subsidizing end up in neighboring countries.

“The question is how do you manage that process? Can it be gradual rather than instantaneous? How are you going to cushion the effects of these subsidy prices? How are you going to cushion the effect of it on food inflation which is a direct cost? Because you are bringing food in, from food baskets and from rural communities into urban centers and that affects the cost of food.

“How are you going to mitigate against all these things? How are you going to mitigate against the higher cost of delivering service, of running businesses? What can you put in place now?

“That is the cushioning policymaking that I expect to see while doing this policy. A policy as a line item can sound right, but the way in which is done; the timing with which is done. The people and how it is implemented can determine whether it is a failure or it succeeds.

“At this point in time this policy and a set of policies have put Nigerians into the hardest period of their lives. Even me coming of age, I’ve not known Nigeria to be harder than what Nigerians currently are facing.
 “At the same time, we are still hearing that you are buying private jets. You’re using billions to buy bulletproof cars. That doesn’t seem you’re doing things because you say that we’re on the verge of bankruptcy, we are spending money as a political class as though we just discovered oil.

“There is no accountability; deficient is being too kind. There is no accountability. There is no transparency in the way these loans are being managed, in the way monies are being handled. There is nothing. They are just spending. There’s no shame. There’s no care. It’s like what are you going to do about it?

“That’s where we are as a nation and this is why democracy is so important. If politicians understand that the people put them in and can take them out, the way they govern will be drastically different,” he said.