Stakeholders have cautioned that if President Bola Ahmed Tinubu fails to heed the advice of his policy advisory council by sequencing his administration's reforms, more Nigerians will fall into poverty.
They claimed that, while the president's measures to revitalize the economy are generally positive, Tinubu must not "set the cart before the horse" in order to avoid eroding any achievements made.
They advised him to develop palliatives as soon as possible in order to alleviate the suffering of millions of Nigerians.
The stakeholders' position follows the World Bank's disclosure that the withdrawal of fuel subsidies in Nigeria has resulted in the impoverishment of over four million people during the first half of 2023.
The World Bank's Lead Economist for Nigeria, Alex Sienaert, said this during the unveiling of "Nigeria Development Update" in Abuja.
Sienaert warned that if targeted steps were not implemented quickly, an additional 7.1 million Nigerians were expected to fall into poverty by the end of the year.
Speaking on the reform, Uche Uwaleke, an economist and Nigeria's first professor of capital markets, said the president has undoubtedly made the right decisions in terms of changes.
“But again, it must be pointed out that when you are implementing reforms, these reforms need to be sequenced.
He said: “If the president is using the policy document developed by the Policy Advisory Council led by distinguished Senator Tokunbo Abiru with inputs from KPMG, it says clearly that in the first 100 days, the president will announce the intention to remove subsidy and then much later in the documents you will find that it recommends introducing non-cash palliatives to cushion the effect, implementing minimum wage, partnering with the BUA and the Dangote to increase refined capacity. The last point they put there is to effect the bullet removal of fuel subsidy.â€
According to Professor Uwaleke, the advisory group advised that the government first estimate the impact of unification of currency rates on the economy and then determine the amount of foreign reserves needed to maintain that strategy.
He added that the council also advised taking into account the backlog of foreign exchange demand, which he estimated to be over $12 billion, as well as contingency reserves.
“So, all these are supposed to come into the model, before you now talk about unification of exchange rate, but what we are seeing is that these things have happened before some of the things recommended.â€