Adewole Adebayo, the 2023 presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), has criticized President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, referring to him as “a well-known tax collector.”
During an appearance on Channels Television, Adebayo acknowledged that Tinubu has made some progress in managing Nigeria’s economy but argued that the reforms are not the best and are merely an improvement over the previous disorganized system.
Adebayo likened Nigeria’s economic situation under Tinubu to an emergency room patient, saying that while the President has stabilized the situation, he hasn’t identified the root cause of the problem or found a cure.
Adebayo said: “Everybody knows that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a well known tax collector. But that tax collection is an improvement over a disorganized system he met on ground. He did tax collection in Lagos and he came to do tax collection in Abuja. The problem is with Hon. Dogara’s speech is that he is overstating it. This reform is not the best but is far better than what we had.
“It’s obvious that the economy that President Buhari left was a poorly managed economy, and was an emergency room patient. Like any emergency room patient, the road to recovery will be a good diagnosis by the doctor. So if the doctor is able to know what is the reason why you are ill, he will be able to put you on a solid path to recovery.
“What President Tinubu has done is to stabilise the patient, but I’m not sure that he has managed to know the ailment. So the patient is not going to die imminently, but he hasn’t found a cure.
“He hasn’t been able to identify the problem, the ailment that is disturbing the patient, but as an emergency room doctor he is taking some steps, some of it actually aggravated the case of the patient, but over time, he appears to have one or two wins in two sectors, which is why it appears that they might be deceived into thinking that the patient is on his road to recovery.”