Convener of The Alternative, Segun Showunmi, has faulted the National Opposition Movement, NOM, over its stand regarding the new tax law.
He described the movement as “gangs of failed politicians who mistake noise for policy and outrage for ideas, and who fail to offer pragmatic solutions.”
Recall that in a news conference held at the Shehu Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja, the NOM demanded that President Bola Tinubu’s new tax law be immediately suspended, calling it a severe attack on the means of subsistence for ordinary Nigerians.
They insisted that the tax law is an assault on Nigerians, citing the nation’s poor socioeconomic conditions, which include growing poverty, insecurity, and declining living standards.
Responding, Segun Showunmi on Wednesday, in a statement made available to newsmen in Abeokuta, said the NOM offered a familiar mixture of alarmism, selective outrage, and political nostalgia, rather than a credible alternative economic vision.
Showunmi argued that no reform is painless, and the cost of not changing is always greater than the cost of reforming.
He said, “What the National Opposition Movement has offered Nigerians is not a credible alternative economic vision but a familiar mixture of alarmism, selective outrage, and political nostalgia. Over-recycled, excessively ambitious politicians must snap out of their fearmongering.
“We are the national opposition movement because we always offer pragmatic solutions, not this set of unimaginative, recycled, past-their-shelf-life gangs of failed politicians who mistake noise for policy and outrage for ideas.”
According to Showunmi, the nation is implementing reforms that are in line with global best practices rather than acting alone or experimenting carelessly.
He asserted that countries that succeed in decreasing poverty and inequality do so by establishing robust domestic revenue systems that are transparent, dependable, and broad-based.
“Nigeria is following the same difficult but necessary path taken by reforming economies across the world. Those who oppose it should do so with facts, honesty, and workable solutions, not theatrical despair and recycled slogans,” he added.
