“BE GENEROUS TO THIS POOR MAN”: SHETTIMA PLEADS FOR SUPPORT FOR TINUBU

Vice-President Kashim Shettima has urged Nigerians to show what he described as generosity towards President Bola Tinubu, arguing that the administration took difficult economic decisions to prevent Nigeria from sliding into deeper crisis.

Shettima made the appeal in Lagos after meeting Tinubu, who had recently returned to Nigeria following his annual vacation. He said the President remained in contact with him and other officials while away.

The Vice-President’s defence focused particularly on two of the administration’s most controversial economic policies: the removal of petrol subsidy and the unification of multiple foreign exchange rates.

“It is absolutely essential that Nigerians need to be generous to this poor man,” Shettima said while urging citizens to appreciate the difficulty of the decisions taken by the administration.

“He saved the economy” Shettima said the administration inherited an economy that was already under severe pressure.

According to him, Nigeria’s foreign reserves stood at about $3.9 billion when the Tinubu administration assumed office, which he said was insufficient to finance fuel imports for one month. He argued that the President had the courage to take decisions that previous governments had avoided.

“He saved the economy,” Shettima said, adding that Nigeria had been heading towards an economic crisis before the administration’s reforms.

ValidViewNetwork reports that the Vice-President’s argument is essentially a defence of the government’s reform strategy, rather than an independent economic assessment. The administration’s position has repeatedly been that subsidy removal and exchange-rate reforms were necessary to correct structural weaknesses.

HARDSHIP ACKNOWLEDGED

Shettima did not deny that Nigerians are experiencing economic hardship.Instead, he argued that the hardship associated with reforms would eventually ease.

“Tough times do not last forever; tough people do,” he said.

He listed government interventions that he said were intended to reduce pressure on households, including planned electric tricycles, buses and e-taxis.

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The Vice-President also pointed to the Nigerian Education Loan Fund as one of the programmes intended to expand access to higher education for students from poorer families.

POLITICS AND GOVERNANCE

Shettima acknowledged that political activity ahead of the 2027 elections was already becoming more visible. He said the government would nevertheless continue governing while participating in politics.

“Politics is in the air, but we’ll combine politics and governance,” he said.

The statement comes amid increasingly sharp political arguments over whether Tinubu’s economic reforms are beginning to produce sufficient benefits for ordinary Nigerians.

For the administration, the reforms represent necessary structural correction. For critics, the central test remains whether those reforms translate into lower living costs, greater purchasing power, more jobs and improved living standards.

ValidViewNetwork reports that the disagreement is therefore not simply about whether difficult decisions were taken, but whether the social and economic benefits promised by the government will become sufficiently visible to Nigerians.

Ultimately, public support for economic reform is likely to depend less on political appeals for patience and more on measurable improvements in household welfare, employment, prices and access to basic services.