It is obvious that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is taking governance towards Sweden. Imagine Nigeria becoming the Sweden of Africa, with moderations that’ll change the Swedish flag. In a year, our hard-working leader has shuffled his cabinet, dumping deadwoods, retaining dynamically inactive ones, transferring others and injecting used blood. His nominee as new brooms would sweep cleaner than the vacuum cleaner. If this is not dynamism, then Arise O compatriots!
The pump price of petroleum products, the new barometer for measuring good governance tumbled so fast that it took the efficient management of our roads by road safety, majamaja, VIO and agberos to prevent a logjam on the Abuja-Keffi Highway. We could have been summoned before the United Nation’s Climate Change Committee to compare our carbon footprint with India and China.
Since Tinubu moved to Aso Rock, many car owners have opted to use Africa’s most efficient public transport system instead of their rickety tokunbos. The god of the climate would be sending its blessings on our president at a time he needs dollars to fix the window of Vice President Kashim Shettima’s plane. Our democracy is so stable that both the president, his vice and all members of the executive and legislative arms of the government could be flying in different directions and the heavens would not fall. That is because, for over a year now, Nigeria’s ship of state has been running on autopilot. We dare the junta leaders in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger to try that for size.
Despite a very tight schedule, the president had the presence of mind to reduce the cost of governance. That is unprecedented if you ask me. Much more dynamic than Buhari who kept appointing literally dead people into offices because he has no respect for the living.
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Like charity, the president began from home, reducing his own local convoy of 50 to a paltry 20 for foreign trips and 25 for local trips. The vice president will now have to do with 15. Ministers are now limited to three vehicles for convoy. Anyone seen competing with the president’s convoy from henceforth would now face the full wrath of the law and perhaps a jail term from the guys in Den Haag for crimes against convoy rules and heating up the climate.
The presidency hates competition and even state governors usually competing against presidential convoys would have to have theirs reduced in line with their powers that were whittled down when the courts granted financial autonomy to local governments. The only reason there would be 70 vehicles on the presidential motorcade is when he visits Lagos, because Sanwo-Olu would have to go and receive his first citizen. Obasanjo once told us that the government had no business in running a fleet of official cars. Apparently, someone brought them back and we will choose to forgive them if they promise to go and sin no more.
Besides frugality, Mr President has confirmed that he has fixed all of Nigeria’s problems. His power minister’s recent report is that electricity generation peaked at such a high that the national grid collapsed. Security has improved so much that nobody hears of cattle rustling anymore. It is now replaced with human rustling, a situation where people are picked up and made to empty their accounts into non-traceable pay portals, then released back to the grind to go and sweat for more if they cooperate.
There’s been an improvement in kidnapping. Indeed, there is no kidnapping. People still get picked up if information reveals that they have a fat bank account or have relatives who do or live abroad. Victims are fleeced until there’s nothing left to wring out. Then they are spared depression as their captors kill and bury them in shallow graves.
A thriving organ market has also sprung up in various parts of the country where those who have the connection could buy the organs of their victims for ritual purposes or for organ transplant. Tinubu is working.
Why do ministers need long convoys when security has improved? Being the face of an administration that is so loved across board that states once held by the opposition are falling like ripe Julie mangoes in the harmattan wind, who would want to harm a government official? Certainly nobody. Instead, there are so many people waiting to put garlands on the necks of their ministers the way Lagosians put tires on the necks of thieves if they had the chance. If we let that happen, the necks of our ministers could become too heavy for their empty heads.
With these far-reaching reforms, the president must have been reading the zzzthe frugality and efficiency of the Swedish governance system. According to that missive, only the Swedish head of state gets guarded for life. Swedish ministers are obliged by law to take public transport to and from work instead of being protected by law enforcement like Nigeria’s officials.
Swedish ministers have no secretaries, official cars or drivers. Their parliamentarians get a state-funded travel card for official use. They are squeezed into small apartments where they are condemned to doing their own laundry and dishes. They have no posh offices, instead, they work from home and earn a paltry $78,000 annually. This is why Sweden is the numero uno with quality of life and social purpose and the best place to marry and raise children. Health care is free for all citizens in Sweden as it is for our hardworking president.
Apparently, Vice President Kashim Shettima brought home this blueprint from his recent visit to Sweden. The fear now is that prayer warriors among those to be affected by the president’s new cost of governance would start bombarding heaven with prayers for the president to change his mind. Imagine serving in Aso Rock for eight years without making a single foreign trip that could lead to foreign travel allowance? Imagine working in Aso Rock without the privilege of being seen with the president on television.
I bet there are many people who would be averse to this Swedish model of frugality in governance. Their excellencies would never support a system that relegates them to the shameful status of mister or miss when they are honourable thieves and distinguished pen robbers. They would prefer to be addressed by their unearned traditional titles instead of being called by their common names.
Thanks, Mr. President, for saving us the unnecessary cost of governance. We shall be looking out for the number of cars on your convoy next time you visit Lagos as its most eminent citizen. As for how this translates on the faces of Nigerians, well we must regulate social media use – there are too many people cursing out the nation and its dynamic president. Thank heavens that prayers go to voice mail and curses bounce off their targets.
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