The Presidency has dismissed claims that President Bola Tinubu is attempting to turn Nigeria into a one-party state, calling such suggestions absolute nonsense.
As Tinubu’s administration marks its second year in office, the government insists that democracy is not only alive but growing stronger under his leadership.
Speaking during a telephone conversation with Vanguard, Bayo Onanuga, who serves as the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, noted that the country’s democracy remains intact and is growing stronger.
According to him, the presence of active opposition parties and their freedom to operate freely across the country proves that democracy is not under threat.
He said, “What I will just say is that two years later, we have many stories of success, and we can say very confidently that the reforms that this present administration instituted in 2023 have yielded fruits and this is evidenced in many areas.
“In stable exchange rate, it has succeeded to harmonise the exchange rate. Stop all this arbitrary forex regime whereby you find official rate having a gap of about N200, N300 from the parallel market. That’s history.
The exchange rate is more stable now than two or three years ago. We have been recording positive balances of payment and trade, not just in small figures but in very nice figures.
“Inflation, the one that has been giving some problems, is easing; it’s going down, and we expect it should go further down in the next two weeks or much because food prices, which is the major driver of this inflation, has continued to reduce.
“So I can say that we have cause to celebrate that this government has achieved a lot in the last 24 months. This is just the midterm we should not forget that it’s just the midterm, we expect more successes in the second half of our journey but we have so many things we are proud of that this government has achieved.”
On how he rates democracy in the country, he said, “Democracy is alive; it’s thriving. You can see this government allows the opposition to thrive. You can see them holding meetings everywhere, planning their own show, that shows that democracy is alive.
“And the APC is doing its own show, you don’t see them fighting one another, everybody is on his own lane. So, there is freedom of speech because these are the things you look out for when you are talking about democracy.
“Freedom, of speech is available, freedom of association is available. So democracy is thriving in our country contrary to some insinuations that this government wants to impose one party system. It’s all absolute nonsense, democracy is alive in Nigeria.”
