The Convener of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Ideological Group, Hon. Bamidele Atoyebi, has urged Nigerians to remain patient with the reforms of President Bola Tinubu, describing the current economic transition as difficult but necessary journey toward national recovery and long-term prosperity.

Atoyebi, in a statement titled “Tinubu Reforms: Correlation Between Nigerians and Israelites,” compared Nigeria’s present reform period with the biblical journey of the Israelites from Egypt, arguing that many citizens were beginning to romanticise a past that was marked by hardship, unpaid salaries, fuel scarcity, prolonged university strikes, insecurity and weak public infrastructure.

He said the reforms introduced by the Tinubu administration were designed to dismantle structural problems that had held the country back for decades, even though their immediate effects had created discomfort for many households.

“Just as the Israelites chose to yearn for Egypt, forgetting God’s deliverance and willingly offering to return to a place where they were maltreated, enslaved and stripped of their basic rights, many Nigerians today are expressing a preference for the past,” Atoyebi said.

He maintained that Nigeria before the current administration was burdened by a culture of borrowing for consumption, including borrowing to pay salaries, fund fuel subsidies and support foreign exchange interventions.

Atoyebi said many state governments were unable to meet their salary obligations, with arrears stretching for several months in some states, while industrial actions by the Academic Staff Union of Universities often prolonged four-year degree programmes into six or eight-year academic journeys.

He said the country also struggled with persistent fuel scarcity, unemployment, poverty, insecurity and an electricity sector plagued by system failures and financial deficits.

The BAT-IG convener recalled his experience as a secondary school student, saying he once led a protest after students were sent home because their parents could not pay school fees due to unpaid salaries.

“I actually led a student protest after my classmates and I were chased out of school because our parents could not pay our fees simply because the government had not paid their salaries,” he said.

Atoyebi argued that the removal of fuel subsidy, one of Tinubu’s first major policy decisions, had helped to end the recurring queues at filling stations and reduce the cycle of artificial fuel scarcity.

He also praised the administration for ending what he described as borrowing for non-productive consumption, insisting that the government had refused to take loans merely to pay salaries.

He likened the hardship accompanying the reforms to the Yoruba proverb, “Tita ríro lá n kọlà, tó bá jinná tán, á di ọ̀gẹ́,” meaning that tribal marks are carved through pain but eventually heal into beauty.

“We have to endure this transitional phase because nothing truly great is achieved without passing through hardship first,” Atoyebi said.

He added that the government’s economic reforms had attracted recognition from critics and international rating institutions, while investors were beginning to show renewed confidence in Nigeria’s economy.

Atoyebi said Nigerians, particularly young people, should avoid being discouraged by political narratives that suggest that the economy was not improving.

He cited remarks by an individual identified as George, who warned that Nigeria could face a future similar to South Africa if citizens continued to blame successive governments and without taking advantage of emerging opportunities.

“George said that if care is not taken, what is going to happen 10 years to come in Nigeria is what is happening in South Africa, where citizens are blaming foreigners for their deteriorating condition because they wasted their time blaming the apartheid government,” Atoyebi stated.

He said the two major concerns still confronting Nigerians were insecurity and the delay in the benefits of reforms reaching ordinary citizens, but noted that no government could eliminate every social challenge overnight.

“Total perfection is impossible,” he said, adding that poverty had remained a global and historical challenge across societies.

Atoyebi said the Tinubu administration had introduced several interventions to cushion the effects of subsidy removal, including the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, Technical and Vocational Education and Training programmes, and the deployment of Compressed Natural Gas-powered buses.

He said the initiatives were intended to ensure that students could access higher education and vocational training without placing unbearable financial pressure on their parents, while CNG transportation would reduce the burden of rising transport costs.

The BAT-IG convener also commended the administration’s efforts to reform the power sector, describing electricity as one of the biggest obstacles to Nigeria’s economic development for decades.

He said the decentralisation of the electricity sector had created a new opportunity for states to independently generate, transmit and distribute power within their territories.

According to him, the constitutional amendment moving electricity from the Exclusive Legislative List to the Concurrent Legislative List had broken the federal monopoly and empowered states to seek local solutions to their energy challenges.

Atoyebi noted that states including Lagos, Abia, Enugu and Imo had begun developing frameworks to attract private investment and establish independent power projects and mini-grids.

He said the reforms could gradually reduce the dependence of local economies on the national grid and improve electricity supply across the country.

“The primary bottleneck of the Nigerian power sector has historically been its hyper-centralised structure,” he said. “This game changed entirely with the signing of the constitutional amendment that decentralised the power sector.”

Atoyebi further said the administration was addressing the liquidity crisis in the power sector, which he said had accumulated debts exceeding N4 trillion and discouraged investment.

He said the establishment of a presidential committee on electricity and plans to use bond issuances to clear legacy debts would help restore confidence in the sector and make it more attractive to investors.

He added that the expected inflow of capital could support the rehabilitation of substations, replacement of transformers and expansion of transmission lines.

On insecurity, Atoyebi said the planned state policing framework would strengthen grassroots security architecture and address the weaknesses of a centralised policing system.

He argued that localised policing would improve commitment, response time and community intelligence, while also reducing political and financial sabotage in the security sector.

“As I have written in previous formal articles, the best way to solve insecurity is to tackle it from the grassroots, and that is exactly what Tinubu is achieving through state policing,” he said.

He also highlighted local government autonomy, decentralisation of military training facilities across geopolitical zones and efforts to fulfil long-standing post-civil war commitments to the South-East as signs of broader institutional reforms.

Atoyebi said Nigerians should judge the administration by its long-term structural interventions rather than temporary difficulties, insisting that the country was being repositioned for economic strength, stability and global respect.

He compared Nigeria’s situation to the Israelites’ journey through hardship before reaching the Promised Land, arguing that the endurance of early generations laid the foundation for modern Israel’s military strength and economic growth.

“The endurance of those few early Israelites laid the foundation for the prosperity of modern-day Israel, a nation now globally renowned for its formidable military and thriving economy,” he said. “That is the exact destination Tinubu is steering Nigeria toward.”

Atoyebi urged Nigerians not to lose hope or become distracted by nostalgia for previous administrations, which he said were characterised by fuel queues, unpaid salaries, university strikes, poor electricity supply, weak local government autonomy and corruption.

He called on citizens to contribute to solving minor challenges within their communities while engaging relevant institutions when issues exceeded their capacity.

“There are many minor challenges we can resolve within our own communities without always waiting for the government,” Atoyebi said. “And when a situation does exceed your personal capacity, forward it to the BAT-IG; that is what we do.”