By Eshioromeh Sebastian
Presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Peter Obi, has said he would retain President Bola Tinubu’s free-floating exchange rate policy if elected in 2027, drawing a striking parallel to his position on fuel subsidy removal.
Obi made the disclosure during an exclusive interview on Arise TV on Thursday, when asked to name one policy of the Tinubu administration he would keep.
“There’s one — the floating of the Naira. I’m not going to defend it, but I’m going to put productivity to make it more valuable to the people,” Obi said.
The former Anambra State governor’s position means he would maintain the floating exchange-rate system while seeking to change the economic conditions that determine the strength and value of the naira.
Obi was quick to add a caveat: he would not defend the policy as currently implemented, but would instead focus on boosting productivity to strengthen the currency.
His alternative, he explained, would not be to abandon the floating system but to boost production and economic activity in a way that could improve the naira’s value to Nigerians.
Obi’s stance on the naira float mirrors his position on fuel subsidy removal, a policy he supports in principle but criticises the Tinubu administration for implementing poorly.
The NDC candidate has consistently maintained that while subsidy removal was necessary, the government failed to properly manage and invest the savings generated.
“I subscribe and I maintain that we need to remove subsidy. Mismanagement of the proceeds should not be the reason for not removing it,” Obi said at the Nigerian Bar Association conference in Port Harcourt in August.
He argued that the government should have provided alternatives to cushion the impact of subsidy removal on Nigerians while ensuring that savings were deployed to productive sectors such as agriculture, healthcare, education, and security.
Obi’s position puts him at odds with African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar, who has vowed to restore fuel subsidy if elected.
Atiku, who previously supported subsidy removal during the Obasanjo administration, has now promised a “targeted, capped, transparently budgeted and independently audited subsidy” for domestic refining and production.
Obi has rejected Atiku’s proposal, insisting that the poverty in Northern Nigeria was not worsened by subsidy removal but by other factors. He has pledged to tackle poverty in the region through investment in agriculture, education, healthcare, and skills development.
“The North has an asset that no other area can say they have, and that asset is agriculture. We will invest in it, we will give subsidy in it, we will ensure that we take all those poor people, almajiris back to education, support them in different areas,” Obi said.
The Central Bank of Nigeria introduced the “willing buyer, willing seller” model on June 14, 2023, shortly after Tinubu assumed office. The reform unified the country’s multiple foreign exchange market segments and allowed demand and supply to play a greater role in determining the naira’s value.
The naira depreciated sharply following the reform, moving from below N500 to the dollar at the time to above N1,000/$ and later crossing N1,500 per dollar at various points.
Beyond economic policy, Obi also cautioned against allowing ethnic considerations to determine the outcome of the 2027 presidential election.
“Our election should not be driven by tribalism,” he said.
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