Dear President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. I am writing this long letter to you as a Nigerian citizen who believes that once elected, a government has the right to govern, including the right to make mistakes. I believe that you were duly elected in last year’s presidential election, and that you have both the right and the responsibility to govern, even if you make mistakes along the way. But I am also writing as a columnist whose first job is to speak truth to power in the public interest, however inconvenient it might be for the high and mighty to hear.
Mr President, there is right now a state of siege in the polity about a mass protest over hunger and hardship in the country. The tensions and uncertainties surrounding the constant talk about this protest have created a siege mentality among Nigerians throughout the country. This state of political siege portends graver dangers than the protest itself, were it to ever hold.
Mr President, as I wrote last week, the biggest mistake of your government so far was that you personally misread the economic mood of the nation as at the time of your election victory and inauguration. Nigerians had been hurting deeply for a long time, and had hoped that your election will bring them some relief. The Nigerian economy had been in a bad place for nearly 10 consecutive years. Since 2014, our economy had been badly hit by a series of unfortunate events, some externally-driven, others domestically manufactured: the slump in crude oil prices (2014-2017), the economic disruptions of the global pandemic (2020-2022), the spill-over economic effects of the Russia-Ukraine (2022-2024), two recessions in 2016 and 2019, four straight years of persistent food inflation (2020-2024); rural insecurity in several northern states, annual flooding disasters, and the devastating effects of the naira redesign policy (2023), etc.
No economy, and no people, can withstand all of these blows over 10 straight years without falling over, not even in the so-called developed economies with many safety nets. So, long before you took office, the Nigerian economy was already a badly bruised patient gasping for breath in the emergency ward. But rather than perform a life-saving procedure, or administer even a pain reliever, you launched two policies—fuel subsidy removal and naira devaluation—that have turned a bad situation into a catastrophe. Mr President, Nigerians now daily eat roasted corn at nine in the morning, which by itself should tell you there is serious hunger in the land because this is the only type of food that millions of Nigerians can afford to buy now.
In addition, your government is perceived, with some justification, to have spent the past year fretting over political issues that should not concern it or pandering to the priorities of politicians above those of the citizens. It is this combination of economic destitution, hopelessness and perceived wrong priorities of your government that the organisers of the so-called protests have adeptly tapped into, even if they have other motives. Most importantly, it is why the protest, were it to hold in the current political, social and economic climate in Nigeria, portends a clear and present danger for national security and stability.
Mr President, I personally do not believe that you launched these policies to make Nigerians suffer more than they already had. Rather, I believe you thought you were doing the right thing, and that in time the beneficial impacts of these policies would prove themselves right. Indeed, you were not alone in thinking that.
All the leading presidential candidates also said they would implement these same policies, and had any of them won the election, they probably would have done the same thing as you did. But Mr President, as you know, in both politics and policy, good intentions can still return truly bad outcomes. This is one example. As things stand now, there is absolutely no scientific or logical basis for which fuel subsidy removal, naira devaluation and quarterly interest rate hikes will lead to better economic outcomes for Nigerians this year or next.
It is, therefore, time to accept, first to yourself Mr President, and then to Nigerians, that you made a mistake with these policies and chart a new course. There is no shame or blame in doing that.
Mr President, Nigeria is right now a country at the edge of a cliff. No one knows whether we are going to fall off it, heavens forbid, or come away from it unscathed, as I hope. Everything depends on what you do or don’t do. But so far, Mr President, you have done only the wrong things, or rather, the little things to avert this crisis. In fact, you have done everything but lead us away from the present situation.
We have seen clerics on both sides of the religious aisle deliver spurious fatwas against political protests. We have seen traditional rulers speak against protests. We have heard griots and political praise singers hail you to high heavens. We have seen your political lieutenants clamp down on their peers for speaking out. We have even heard rumours of social media activists being arrested by the police or whoever. All of these things, individually or collectively, and whatever the intentions behind them, have served merely to add fire to the fury.
Mr President, detached observers like myself have watched with growing frustration how you and your government have appeared completely flustered, afraid and nervous in responding to the current situation. Never in all my years of actively following politics in Nigeria and around the world—and those years are not few, Mr President—have I seen an elected government so rattled by a political action that has not yet happened. Yes, the whole country has been taken over by the talk of protests, but the protests have not yet happened. People have not yet poured into the streets. Even the August 1 date announced by the still shadowy group of protest organisers is yet to come. Therefore, there is still more you can do to push us away from the cliff.
Mr President, you and your government have just one challenge in this situation: to turn the national political psyche and today’s dominant political narrative away from talk about protests to something else, to anything other than protests. Those planning the protests, whatever they think, or whatever their motives, do not have more democratic legitimacy than you or your elected government. But you are holed up in Aso Villa, and sending mainly unelected third parties to do a job that is best done by yourself in this moment of national security emergency. By so doing, you have handed out the initiative and control of the national political discourse to a leaderless mob on social media, who have sensed, correctly, that the more your government appears flustered by threats of a protest, the more emboldened and disruptive they can and will get.
Mr President, it is time for direct presidential action. You must be seen and heard by all Nigerians. You can announce a reversal of subsidy removal. Things will not change as swiftly as they did when you announced its withdrawal last year, but it will have a strong soothing effect on the polity. You can hold a nationally televised town hall meeting with Nigerians representing all shades of opinion and directly talk down the protests. You can hold a two-hour solo press conference with senior journalists and talk to the country through their questions.
You can declare, right now, a mandatory two-year national service programme for all Nigerians aged 18-35, on a pay double the new minimum wage, to mop up all the potential protesters, and then send them to build rail tracks and roads throughout the country. You can task them to clear new farmlands or plant a billion trees. You can do many things besides these to take back control of the political narrative and douse the state of siege in the country today by acting directly more presidential.
I rest my case here, Mr President. Thank you and best regards.
Yours truly in our common Nigerian citizenship.
Suleiman A. Suleiman (PhD)
Abuja, Nigeria
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