Dr Sultan Abaji Recommended Price Control as Solution to Inflation in the country through the establishment of the National Goods and Services Pricing Regulatory Agency (NGSPRA) in an open letter to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

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Dr Sultan Abaji recommended price control as solution to inflation in Nigeria through establishment of the National Goods and Services Pricing Regulatory Agency (NGSPRA) in an open letter to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu 

Dr Sultan Abaji is an Admin General of All Government Workers in Nigeria. (AGWN platform) A WhatsApp and Telegram platform that have over 6,000 members across Federal, States and Local governments workers in all Ministries, Departments and Agencies.

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AN OPEN LETTER TO HIS EXCELLENCY, PRESIDENT BOLA AHMED TINUBU (BAT)

Your Excellency,

Bola Ahmed Tinubu

President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces

Federal Republic of Nigeria

Aso Rock Villa

Abuja.

His Excellency Sir,

With due respect and honour, I wish I have opportunity to discuss with you eye to an eye, the disturbing issues of our dear Nation of whose stewardship Almighty Allah, in His Infinite Mercy, put on your shoulder. Unfortunately, Protocols of seeing a President is stressful, therefore, I used an open letter via Social Media with the hope that sharing through social media it will eventually directly or indirectly get to you sir.

I am very sorry for any inconveniences or breaches of due protocols deserving a President that this write-up may cause.

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Your Excellency Sir, Organised Labour Unions (NLC/TUC) have been pressing you to come up with a living wage that you promised and by the law of federal Republic of Nigeria need to be reviewed every 5 years since 19th April, 2024. A living wage that can cater for the “Basic Needs” of a common public/Civil servant in our dear Nation. They demanded for increased minimum wage for Nigerian Public/Civil servants and a reversal of the recent electricity tariff hike. In your wisdom and experience, you have inaugurated a Tripartite Committee (TC) that was shouldered the responsibility of coming up with a reasonable National Minimum Wage (NMW) after some deliberations, the Tripartite Committee has finished its work and has submitted its recommendations of #62,000 to you and, labour unions on other hand also made their recommendations of #250,000 to you. All eyes are now on you, Your Excellency. 

The common man who is not earning monthly salaries is also looking up to you for the outcome of your wise decision on the New National living wage you promised.

Your Excellency Sir, you may wish to recall that all these demands by the Union Leaders are products of inflation that hit all essential basic commodities needed by the common man to live a decent life. Many attributed such inflation to the fuel subsidy removal on assumption of office that tripled prices of commodities, goods and services and also fiscal and monetary policy of your government.

With recent inflation in the prices of essential commodities has gone beyond the predictions, explanations, laws and theories of macro and microeconomics. The hike in prices has become a norm to the extent that almost every day, no one is certain to buy what he/she bought some few hours ago not to talk of a day or more. 

Your Excellency Sir, of all the countries I was opportune to visit in my life, I have never seen a country and people the like of our dear country, Nigeria. Many countries and businesses reduce prices of almost all goods and services during festive periods such as Ramadan Fasting, Christmas, New Year, Sallah or any national or local occasion. Customers used to delay mass purchases and wait for these festive sessions to enjoy discounts. On the contrary, it is only in my country, Nigeria that businesses are targeting these festive seasons to increase prices. What a wicked, inhuman, unsympathetic and unpatriotic decision. 

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu 

Your Excellency Sir, it is only in Nigeria that I have seen and bear witness that a citizen would buy a 100kg bag of grains, for example, beans, at a rate of N40,000 to N50,000, hoard it and happily sells it at N155, 000! This means making a profit of over N100,000 per bag, yet he/she is happy, sleeping well and enjoying the proceeds with his family. Only in Nigeria could this inhuman and wicked thinking happen. Only in Nigeria could this kind of heartless, wicked, unsympathetic and unpatriotic citizens exist while their fellow citizens, brothers, sisters, in-laws, nieces, cousins, nephews, name them are dying of hunger in abject poverty. This and other reasons are the brains behind the Union Leaders demand for a new New Minimum Wage. In fact, if care is not taken, these kinds of wicked people would not mind making a profit of N200,000 or more per 100kg bag of grains.

Things are really hard for the common man, Your Excellency Sir, the wages award you promised to cushion hardship pending the implementation of living wage has not been fully implemented to many MDAs as at when due. As am writing now 3 to 4 months still outstanding to many MDAs especially Military, Paramilitary, Health Workers and Federal Tertiary Institution (FTI).

Nigeria President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu 

 RECOMMENDATIONS

Your Excellency Sir, Solution to this predicament as follows;

1. Government need to do something urgently if only to stop and reverse the increasing prices of essential commodities so the common man can have an easy life. Some countries are putting subsidies on electricity and essential basic commodities to ease the sufferings of their citizens while others are subsidising the basic inputs for manufacturers of these commodities. But in Nigeria, no matter how much is put to subsidise the commodities, a few wicked people would connive with the manufacturers and buy and hoard the products to create artificial scarcity so that prices could go up. Hence, in Nigeria, subsidies for these commodities would not work but "price control will". Your Excellence Sir, I recommend a legislative establishment of the National Goods and Services Pricing Regulatory Agency (NGSPRA) under a Director General who would be answerable to the Honourable Minister of Budget and Economic Planning. The agency’s primary objective is to ensure that all goods and services in Nigeria are coded with a special code number relevant to them for ease of identification. These coded goods and services would have a price attached to them individually, which is covered by the law. This means for any single service’s or item’s price to change, there must be proper legislation to that effect. Therefore, no individual, groups of people or company has the right to increase the price of any commodity without writing to the agency who would forward the same to the legislators for all the legislative protocols. This would mean the request for an increment in any price of goods or services must be debated and passed into law, otherwise no price increase.

2. Immediate seize of World Bank and IMF policies implementation in Nigeria.

However, this recommendation may seem impracticable to many Nigerians especially those who are in the business of hoarding and manufacturing, but the truth is that it is really practicable with the proper people in places of authorities of the agency. Other countries are doing something similar to this and are safe from the arms of unnecessary inflation and inhuman price hikes. 

Your Excellency Sir, since Nigeria’s economy appeared to defy many economic laws, theories and or predictions, then the approach to resolving such problems means a Nigerian approach. One such approach is the establishment of this kind of agency with strong power of authority to severely deal with defaulters and law violators. Coming up with such an agency, Your Excellency is not going to be easy. You have to be strong, determined and straightforwardness, if you decide to establish it. Many individuals and groups would challenge the decision but I assure you it is going to bring an end to the sufferings of the common citizens. 

WHITE LION, Media and Publicity Admin AGWN platform 

Permission has been granted to any individual, group or Press House that found this write-up worthy to share, reproduce, print and or circulate.

Long live All Government Workers in Nigeria (AGWN) platform,

 

Long live President

His Excellency Bola Ahmed Tinubu,

Long Live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Dr Sultan Abaji 

Admin Gen 

AGWN platform 

1sultanabaji@gmail.com

Cc:

His Excellency, Distinguish Senator Godswill Akpabio

President of the Senate

Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Right Honourable Tajuddeen Abbas

Speaker House of Representative 

Federal Republic of Nigeria.