There’s an urgent need for the world to reconsider its definition of a tragedy. For Nigeria’s sake, we need new lexicographers. Under Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Nigeria is the classic case of a tragedy. Not only is hope betrayed, rescue is abandoned. Seven people died in Lagos scampering for food seized by the Customs. Over the weekend, the president ordered that smuggled goods be released back to smugglers. Presidential fiat is being used to feather the nest of powerful economic saboteurs.
From withdrawing subsidy and sending the prices of goods and services shattering the roofs to paying subsidy through the backdoor; this government displays arrant seriousness to the art and science of good governance.
The naira was floated without a thought to how to cushion its effects on the market. This led to an unprecedented loss in value propelling inflation by over 80 per cent across board while salaries remained stagnant.
The regime sanctioned the raid on warehouses giving hungry masses the idea that it is okay to loot warehouses and waylay vehicles transporting goods. Government actions result in opposite reactions. People exporting commodities that could earn foreign exchange are now made to look like saboteurs.
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With supermarkets unsure of where to replenish stock, Tinubu’s central bank says he is doing well. That incredible falsehood was picked up by Bloomberg which reported that Nigeria recorded inflows exceeding $1 billion in February. Quoting CBN, the publication says this was due to interest rate hike.
Nothing could be more ludicrous. In reality, the chunk of that inflow is money remitted home by Nigerians abroad to rescue relatives back home. The rest came from the same group seizing the opportunity of a free-fall Naira to mop up assets they otherwise could not afford.
It would have been good news if that cash came in from Nigerian exports or to support genuine businesses back home. That could have made a difference in the absorption of the 500,000 graduates that schools churn out yearly. Less than 10 per cent of these graduates get absorbed into the workforce.
Like a desperate asphyxiation patient, Nigeria is a country in search of a breather to reassert itself to the rest of humanity as a nation when we are not. Tinubu wastes ample planning time begging nations that were nymphs in 1960 for handouts and ‘investments.’ No leader with a jot of Nigeria’s human and natural endowment travels for similar purposes. A country of peace and tranquility is a magnet for investment. A fractured and unsecured one attracts gunrunners, arms dealers and merchants of lawlessness.
The regime desperately seeks good news to drown the cacophony of tragic stories oozing from every orifice of the country. It is no longer hidden, that news of military misadventure in neighbouring countries is increasing anxiety in the corridors of power as it instils fake redemption hope in misguided and desperate citizens.
Nearly a decade ago, our North campaigned rigorously to get the creek prince, Goodluck Jonathan, out of government. It switched allegiance from its government and pinned its last hopes on Muhammadu Buhari, a retired General, presumed anti-corruption czar with an ascetic mien.
They could have thrown away the baby with the bathwater if things persisted. As the saying goes; be careful what you wish for as you might just get it. The North got its wishes fulfilled when Jonathan conceded electoral defeat and packed out of Aso Rock like an unwanted squatter.
Darling Buhari; like a weighted matter, occupied the Aso Rock space and began to exhibit a greater level of cluelessness than his supposed clueless predecessor. The North stuck with its own, campaigning under the assumption that the Aegean stable left by Jonathan and his party required a pressure flush and geosynthetic reinforcement to keep the nation from falling.
Buhari spent the legally permitted eight years without fulfilling that aspiration. Perhaps to cover his tracks, he arranged the Tinubu/Shettima Muslim-Muslim ticket to a religiously obsessed but practically ungodly and unholy nation. Their disaster in government shows not just how bad Buhari ruined what was handed over to him, it exhibits its own rotted behind. Clearly those in power today play Russian roulette with governance. They are either too unaware, too pompous or too ultra stoned to admit they have no plan. They are too proud to ask for help except from the apothecary of the IMF that ruins developing nations.
The ship of the Nigerian state has painfully hit the penetrating iceberg of disaster. Within a week, by media accounts, Nigeria has consciously slipped back into global headlines. Sitting in Ottawa, two highly disturbing stories hit Canadian headlines in quick succession. Last Saturday, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC aired a report that nearly 300 school children were kidnapped from their school in Kaduna State. On Sunday, it painted a crisis situation as the month of Ramadan kicks in for hapless families seeking to fulfil religious obligations.
This is a rude shock for a country trying to recover from the hacking to death of a family of six by their acquaintance in Barrhaven, a suburb of Ottawa that it considers an uncommon tragedy. In the country that sought the permission of its courts to declare the deadly act of a lone wolf who drove into a strolling family of four an act of terror; this being Nigerian harrowing.
In 2014 when Chibok happened, Nigeria thought it had never sunk so low. By proportion under Buhari, the tempo prevailed. In June 2021, 140 school children were kidnapped in Kaduna State in one raid. Later, a tertiary institution was attacked, students abducted and whipped with prehistoric slavish brutality caught on video. A train was attacked. Many were killed with the captured subjected to vicious savagery. Government issued empty threats but claimed it does not negotiate with terrorists, leaving relatives at their mercy. It is quick to lie about rescuing captors whose ransom are paid by family as gallantry by its troops.
A fresh batch of 287 schoolchildren has been abducted in Kaduna. As a Toronto-based news group put it, ‘they went to school, but ended up as hostages.’ In the same week, bandits opened fire on worshippers in Kaduna, killing two in the process. In Benue, 40 people were either killed or kidnapped. A newspaper in Nigeria reported that abductions and killings of men might result in the scarcity of husbands in the South East.
This is absolutely traumatizing for any Nigerian living in or outside Nigeria. In each of these cases, President Tinubu avoids the scene but orders security forces to ‘fish-out’ the perpetrators. This obituary template tends to absolve the regime of culpability. It leaves the families of victims in psychological and emotional trauma and financial ruin. A nation worth its classification ought to have value for the life of its citizens within its borders. That is the only time they have respect outside.
Tinubu must charge his overpaid, over pampered and underperforming security chiefs with vicarious culpability since they have no consciousness to resign. Very likely, they laugh off the press hoopla knowing they do not have to give account for their professional slackness.
Somebody needs to tell President Tinubu that the dance is over, people are literally dying to see him take swift and serious action. National cohesion is at stake here.
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