Adeola said that contrary to the report in some major newspapers and some online blogs on Saturday April 26,2025, he had while holding a Town Hall Meeting/ Mega Empowerment Programme with his constituents in Ayetoro, Ogun State, justified the removal of oil subsidy and the floating of the exchange rate by the present administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Speaking mostly in local Yoruba language at the meeting in Ayetoro, the Senate Committee Chairman on Appropriations, submitted that without those bold fiscal policies taken by President Tinubu, Nigerian economy was headed for a collapse.
Adeola who is the Aremo of Yewaland clarified that previous administrations spent trillions of naira on fuel subsidy and defended the naira against the dollar, adding that this was to the benefit of a very negligible number of Nigerians while Nigeria accumulated huge national debt.
Senator Yayi who spoke through a statement on Monday by his media aide, Chief Kayode Odunaro, he stated that at no point did he mentioned the name of former President Buhari or made specific reference to his administration as incurring a debt of $400billion.
He noted that “the debt figure attributed to former President Buhari administration is a misquotation from reporters’ translation of the senator’s speech from Yoruba to English language.”
According to him, the misquotation must have come about from confusing 40 for 400 in translation as the figure of debt for previous administrations.
Adeola noted that most of the reporters of the major newspapers that reported the misquotation did not personally attend the event and relied on some online blogs for their story, even as he reiterated holding former President Buhari in high esteem always and acknowledge his valiant efforts in piloting the economy under the circumstance he found it during his tenure.
