By Owei Lakemfa
The year 2023 held a lot of hope for Nigerians as the Buhari administration which had put the country on autopilot, was programmed to end its tenure by mid-year. Indeed, the past year had begun as a traumatic one with a currency change which impoverished the people as they could not readily access their bank accounts or money.
The Naira, rather than be a means of exchange became a commodity traded in the streets. The local currency was so scarce that people paid as high as 15-20 per-cent as commission for Naira notes. Unfortunately, in the first seven months of the Tinubu administration, governance has not changed in a fundamental way. If anything, the economy for the people got worse with the ill-advised and ruinous increases in PMS prices and the water boarding of the of the Naira. These are the major factors that pushed inflation to 28.2 per-cent. Also in 2023, the Tinubu government was unable to end the scarcity of the Naira leading to it being traded in the streets, sometimes at rates as high as 10 per-cent.
