What may cost next president’s reelection – El-Rufai

The Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has disclosed that tackling fuel subsidy and foreign exchange challenges to reposition Nigeria’s economy to the right trajectory may cost Nigeria’s next president a second term.

Despite this, the governor explained that the country needs such a leader that could rise beyond consideration of office and take painful but necessary decisions to ensure the country develops its economy.

El-Rufai made this known during a panel discussion at the launch of the World Bank Nigeria Development Update and Country Economic Memorandum on Thursday in Abuja.

According to him, the right policies and decisions will remove the word potential from Nigeria’s vocabulary and (Nigeria) will finally be the country we deserve to be.

“The next president of Nigeria must be willing to do just one term if necessary but reverse this trend,” the governor said while answering questions on the removal of fuel subsidy.

“I think that Nigeria’s next president must be willing to take very difficult, immediate, and urgent decisions that will make the country go through maybe three to five years of pain, and reverse this trajectory. I am proud to be a member of the Obasanjo administration during that decade of growth. We were in that government and we knew what we had to do.

“We know what President Obasanjo had to do. The next president of Nigeria must be willing to do just one term if necessary but reverse this trend. The consensus is there. If 95 per cent of jobs are from the private sector, 90 per cent of GDP is from the private sector.

“The private sector agrees that these things must be done. The state governments have agreed that these things must be done. The two big elephants are fuel subsidy and the exchange rate and those at the receiving end of this are the private sectors and the sub nationals.

“We have agreed. What we need is a president willing to expend political capital and take risks to reverse the trajectory of this country on a permanent basis even if it costs him the election because the results may not begin to show until after three to five years.”

(Punch)