Prince Adewole Adebayo, the Presidential Candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the 2023 elections, has tackled President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s economic policies, accusing his government of sharing money rather than creating value.
He stated this on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics.
The ex-presidential candidate posited that the solution to the problem in the country was not a minimum wage increment, adding that the government should be looking at policies that would create value for the naira.
He lamented that the government was only interested in sharing money rather than focusing on how to create more value for the naira.
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Adebayo said: “What we are doing now is that we are organising our politics and governance around sharing money.
“So, in Abuja, the states come to share, the local governments under ALGON also come to share. TUC and NLC are also coming to collect their own share. It’s still the principle of sharing money not sharing value, not creating things.”
He said the current debate on the new minimum wage did not arise from the inadequacy of wages but from the problem of purchasing power.
“What is causing price instability is from the purchasing power of the naira and there are two ways to help the purchasing power of the naira. One is that you can do stabilisation of the currency itself so that you kill hyperinflation and inflation and the naira from January to December can maintain its purchasing power.
“Second thing you need to do is to come from the welfarism point of view. What are the things the workers worry about? What do they spend their money on?”
He said if the government could provide affordable housing, transportation, healthcare and education, there would be less clamour for the minimum wage increment.
Adebayo predicted that even if the government was able to meet the demand for a N615,000 minimum wage, its value would have dropped in four years if the basics were not done.
He said to solve the economic crisis in the country, Tinubu needed to carry out massive social investment.