Tinubu’s 2025 Budget Full Of Unrealistic Expectations, Says SDP’s Adebayo

The presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the 2023 general elections, Prince Adewole Adebayo, has criticised the 2025 budget proposals presented by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to the National Assembly, describing them as full of contradictions and unrealistic expectations.

Adebayo accused the government of insincerity, highlighting the exchange rates fixed in the budget and inflation projections as unrealistic.

“The proposals are self-contradictory. For example, they are working towards 15% inflation. Any basic microeconomist knows that you must never have double-digit inflation,” he said.

He also criticized the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, for his comments on borrowing. “It is not a good day when the finance minister believes the day he goes borrowing in London is a good day. No minister that we had in the past will say the day we went borrowing was a good day,” Adebayo stated.

On Nigeria’s borrowing practices, he noted that while other nations like the United States borrow, they do so in their own currency. “When you are borrowing Eurobonds and foreign currencies, it is a sign of crisis. You can do it, but you shouldn’t celebrate it as a good day,” he argued.

Adebayo also called for a shift in leadership and governance practices, emphasizing the need to rotate leadership ideologically and generationally rather than limiting it to geopolitical zones. He warned that merely rotating power among the elite would continue to perpetuate poverty and insecurity in the country.

He further faulted the political class for undermining electoral integrity, stating that political parties commit more infractions during primaries than they accuse the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of committing.

“Most problems in elections arise from the political parties. INEC is supposed to be a professional body and should not collaborate with politicians to rig elections,” he said.

Adebayo concluded by stressing the need for Nigeria to prioritise self-reliance and policies that promote internal capital generation to avoid overdependence on external borrowing.