With the early salvoes of the National Assembly’s sectorial debates on budget 2024 launched recently, the institution has opened a new vista from which a clearer view of the fiscal agenda of the federal government is now available. And for good measure, of particular significance was the outing by three of the leading lights of the Bola Tinubu economy management team who can as well be referred to as the pivots of the president’s economy reforms agenda, namely the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning Senator Atiku Abubakar Bagudu, Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy Wale Edun, as well as the Governor of the Central Bank Olayemi Cardoso. Cumulatively, the submissions by these three marshals of the economy management team, have lifted the thrust of the economic agenda of the Tinubu administration, from the terrain of conjecture over much of its provisions, through the process of deconstruction, and into a new light where engagement with the ordinary citizen is now feasible. At least for now, contemplations on the budget package no more belong under the cloak of imponderable, voodoo-like mystification.
Among the handles for tracking the highlights of their submissions are key propositions on the way forward for the economy, which even if not agreeable with some persons, are still important as such serve as the framework on which to work with the administration. Even as other sectors may feature in later stages of the sectorial debates, the insights from the economic team point to a course of action and the way forward for the administration. In the same vein, the stage is now set to interrogate the Tinubu agenda pursuant to facilitating optimal buy-in by Nigerians, no matter the angle the conversation flies.
In that context therefore, the foregoing propositions by the trio at the National Assembly should not be seen as the final word on the Tinubu economic agenda even by them. Rather such should be seen as setting the stage for spawning robust conversations on the state of affairs in the country. For beyond the hallowed precincts of the air conditioned chambers of the National Assembly and their offices, lie the harsh realities of contemporary life in Nigeria, which confront the general public and which the economic team are supposed to address.
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Hence it should not be surprising to even them that for the average Nigerian, until the debates and other contemplations provide solutions to the harsh living condition across the country, the debates amount to ‘long grammar’ in Nigerian parlance (and ‘dogo turanci’ in Hausa), which according to an African proverb, ‘can never fill a basket no matter its volume and intensity’. Rather what matters now is, to what extent is the Tinubu factor going to change things around.
Having defined the way forward, it is time for the team to address itself to hitting the road with the envisaged reforms on a running pace. For while the team submits that Nigeria is at the brink of disaster, such a position is actually an understatement on the state of affairs, as the actual situation on ground is that it is now a matter of life and death for many Nigerians, as they are dying daily due to the harshness of living conditions. Nigerians today are literally dying of hunger. Nigerians today are dying from lack of money to buy life-saving drugs. Nigerians today are dying on the streets from street rage and violence. Nigerians today are dying from even deep emotional stress and turmoil.
Meanwhile, the more disposed and aggrieved enough are hitting back at society whom they hold responsible for their condition through unbridled criminality. The surging wave of crimes – banditry, kidnapping, assassinations and all other forms of malfeasance, all share the common springboard of depressed socioeconomic circumstances.
So the challenge facing the economic team goes beyond just reviving the economy, but includes saving Nigerians from further dying avoidably. In that context therefore, the enterprise of the President’s economic team can only be defined in positive terms only by the pace of turn-around for good of the various faces of the quagmire, facing the wider cross section of Nigerians.
Hence having launched his game plan through his economic team, the next port of call for the President is to marshal the platform for service delivery which is the federal bureaucracy. For as brilliant and foresighted Tinubu and his team may be, the primary success factor for his envisaged reforms remains the federal bureaucracy. As he and the economy team may have found out or may be finding out sooner than later, the federal bureaucracy is not yet a development oriented establishment that will immediately adjust to every new policy change.
Given its traditional weaknesses which include organizational lethargy, bloated work force and wide spread deficit in bureaucratic skills, it is presently most unprepared for the president to depend on for his far reaching reforms. For to do so is to shoot the reform agenda in the foot. Thus the first step in the uphill task that the president’s agenda actually is remains the urgent revamping of the federal bureaucracy. Without sounding patronising, the template of a desired bureaucracy for the Tinubu reforms is the National Assembly legislative bureaucracy which is led ably by the current Clerk to the institution Sani Mogaji Tambuwal. Even President Tinubu will easily admit the superlative enterprise in this non-assuming super bureaucrat given the dexterity which he displayed in delivering the 2024 budget passage within a record time of just one month instead of the three months that had been the case with previous budget exercises.
And for the purpose of emphasis, the shenanigans of the federal bureaucracy is where the Achilles Heel of previous administrations was anchored. For instance, as a snippet of the current state of the federal bureaucracy is the avalanche of shenanigans in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which recently played out into the public domain. Using the CBN as a metaphor for the problem with Nigeria’s public bureaucracy, it can be imagined what scum will need to be disposed of, to facilitate the reinventing of the bureaucracy to drive the Tinubu reforms.
Hence, when armed with a firm grip on the federal bureaucracy, then can the president venture into a buy-in by the various state governments regardless of party affiliation. For as evidence abounds, governance in Nigeria is yet to fit into a harmonized template. Administrative practices and procedures come in as many varieties as there are jurisdictions. Hence Tinubu’s brief remains one of driving a designated cocktail of reforms through a patchwork of variegated jurisdictions.
For a visionless leader, the foregoing considerations may not be worth paying attention to. However for Tinubu with his stated ambitious agenda, identifying with these conditions precedent to the success of his mission, remains mandatory.
