Monday Eze 
The recent launch of the Renewed Hope Nigeria First Policy by President Bola Tinubu is heart-warming. The policy, which has been backed by an executive order of the President, seeks to enforce patronage for Nigerian local content.
According to the Information Minister, Mohammed Idris, who unveiled the policy, “President Bola Tinubu has proposed that we will no longer just sit there and allow importation to come into this country where there is the capacity for production of any of these commodities locally.
Now, as I said, the President has proposed the following directives, and all of them have been approved by the Federal Executive Council”. As good as this policy appears there is palpable fear that without proper arrangements like reviving the power, infrastructural and security sectors, the policy will not achieve its aim.
A dispassionate examination of President Tinubu’s approach to reviving the nation’s collapsed economy points to the fact that the President has placed much of his focus on borrowing and taxation and not on reviving relevant sectors like power or energy which drives production and economic development.
This misplaced focus has made the President overlook the real challenges of the economy, which ought to be addressed headlong by any administration that truly intends to revive the economy. This wrong economic approach has been criticised by renowned economists and well-meaning people.
For instance, available records from the Debt Management Office (DMO) show that Nigeria’s borrowings under the Tinubu administration have been significant. In fact, with the trend of borrowing by the President Tinubu’s administration, Nigeria’s debt profile will be on the rise for a long time.
The impact of this borrowing on the Nigerian economy is a growing concern. Debt servicing alone consumed N4 trillion in the second quarter of 2024.
This situation, where about 96% of the total national revenue is used for debt servicing, has raised concerns about the country’s reliance on loans and its potential consequences for the nation. Beyond the unending chain of borrowings, the current administration has increased existing taxes and introduced new ones.
The hallmark of President Tinubu’s tax regime is the controversial Tax Reform Bills which have been on a turbulent journey in the National Assembly. The Federal Government has given several reasons to justify its borrowings, tax drive and the Tax Reform Bills.
The Minister of Finance, Wale Edun, has argued in different fora that both the aforementioned borrowings as well as borrowing plan and Tax Reform Bills are part of the government’s efforts to strengthen the country’s finances and enhance economic reforms.
The fact that the huge borrowings and high tax regime which have become the flagships of President Tinubu’s administration has not yielded tangible improvements to the economy makes Minister Edun’s argument untenable.
No country can attain economic prosperity by taxing her poor and unproductive population
At best, all that the borrowings and increased taxation had done was to provide government officials easy funds to spend, scare away investors and compound both official corruption and the economic woes of the ordinary Nigerian masses.
The problem with the economy began with the discovery of oil and total reliance on oil revenues which did not require commensurate work. This resulted in sustained corruption and loss of interest in work or positive industry; hence, the collapse of the nation’s institutions.
The cumulative results of fluctuating or dwindling oil revenue, increase in unproductive but consuming population and sustained corruption are the hunger, violent crimes, economic crises and unaccountable leadership currently bedevilling Nigeria.
The point here is that taxation and borrowings without institutional reforms to enhance accountability, production and service delivery cannot heal or revive the ailing Nigerian economy.
Borrowing money and increasing taxes to service the debts and official exotic appetite constitute a mere vicious circle of economic crises.
There is a need to radically reform the energy, education, health, industrial and agricultural sectors and prime them for sustainable production of goods and provision of goods and services.
It is production and provision of goods and services that will strengthen both the economy and the naira and earn the country foreign exchange. The Nigeria First policy can only thrive on productivity. The population of Nigeria makes her a prized ready market.
Providing goods and services locally for this army of consumers and patrons is a sure way to economic recovery and prosperity.
However, without productivity-enhancing power and infrastructural systems, the Nigeria First Policy and a thousand executive orders will be useless. Like an economic pundit posited:
“No country can attain economic prosperity by taxing her poor and unproductive population”. President Tinubu and his team are hereby advised to review their approach by incorporating aggressive resuscitation of both the power, infrastructural and other sectors to drive the productivity of the vast Nigeria population. This, not mere churning out policies, is the surest and simplest route to economic recovery.
