Today is just a day; yes, another day. With Nigeria and Nigerians, it’s more than just a day. It’s a day and a moment of anxieties, worries and confusion. Is it the hunger and starvation, the overwhelming tendency of the president to hit the ground running in the wrong direction, the far less than screening in the hallow chamber of the upper legislative house or the high tolerance of corruption? In the land there is much ado about everything.
Hunger and starvation suddenly heightened with the presidential inauguration venue announcement of fuel subsidy withdrawal. Most of us were elated knowing that the subsidy was anything but fraud. I was optimistic that government that made such far-reaching decisions and implications must have perfected all plans to put more money in workers’ pockets and to make business environment more supportive and lucrative. It turned out that the government has no plan for anything. From fuel subsidy removal, the government gave the naira a free fall. High cost of transportation that resulted from high cost of fuel and low value of the naira pushed every unit cost of food item to far beyond cloud seven.
The unfortunate and highly provocative issue is that over two months after the inauguration, the government has no ideas on what can be done to give citizens some comfort. More perplexing is the inability to reform public sector salaries. How long can citizens live on handouts? Glad enough it appears the citizens have since rejected anything palliative. Recall palliative is a word introduced to national policy in about 1985.
Palliatives as in Nigeria’s policy are to keep the citizens breathing enough to take on more burden. The horrendous poverty in the land requires permanent and extremely urgent long-lasting solutions. Though the government appears to have given up unification of foreign exchange too soon, the market-driven foreign exchange is bad, the government must urgently intervene to firm up the value of the naira.
The naira is currently too undervalued. The government and invariably, the president must know that Nigerians don’t need management but resolution of their issues and burden. Taxes and savings from fuel subsidy removal should diligently be applied to this.
The confidence and audacity of the president is enviable. The flood of callers and communications from the United States of America and Western Europe including the head of World Bank can make President Tinubu forget that he is the President of Nigeria. This is complicated by the sudden Chairmanship of the ECOWAS Heads of Government. This chairmanship has come too early more so, the ECOWAS is an unfamiliar terrain. President Tinubu should not have accepted the Chair until he understands the politics and diplomacy of the office. This explains the inability to differentiate ECOWAS protocol from age-long agreement between Nigeria and Niger Republic and the resultant cutting off of electricity supply to Niger. The electricity should be reconnected with a letter of unreserved apology. This has to be so because the two sovereign states – Nigeria and Niger – are far from any disagreement.
Finally, on the presidency. The president needs to be reminded that a new wave of consciousness is ongoing. So far, President Tinubu’s romance with free economy is common knowledge. Nigerians do not deserve a free economy with human face. Rather, the craving is for an economy that establishes individual and collective sovereignty. That is an economy in which the value chain is in our hands. It is important to stop the carting away of our resources by Euro-American agencies and companies. To keep on this path, you have to carefully study and understand the relationship with other countries.
Ministerial screening is a serious business for the establishment of good governance and the delivery of goods and services. The screening process is far from thorough. Attempts to establish the personality, integrity and understanding of complex issues and policies are ridiculous and laughable. Expectedly, no one gives what he has got. Can anyone imagine that with documents in their hands at no screening points was Hannatu Musawa found to be a serving National Youth Corps?
It must be noted that the National Youth Service Corp certificate is a condition for employment in the public sector. Hannatu Musawa should not break the law and get away with it. And certainly, a chicken begets a chicken. Can this charade represent the quality of our leaders? The gaffe by the Senate president gives out a tip of iceberg. The Senator Ireti Kingibe additional statement only fires imagination of the magnitude of squander-manic tendencies of the National Assembly. Huge money going to non-development sector. To hell with this democracy!
From the submission and screening of Nigerian ministers, it is obvious that the executive and legislative arms of government have very elastic tolerance, may be one hundred per cent, for corruption. Why will the president appoint people that have high tendencies for pillaging our wealth? Is it the manner of persons that surround him? The dust that occasioned the departure of Governor Akpabio from state governorship on the grounds of severance package is still thick in the air. Governor Matawalle arrived Abuja in a heavy cloud of dust from Zamfara. As we are writing, the security agencies are still interested in the clip that captures Governor Ganduje’s dollars. All these people are being facilitated to various offices. Must the president reward without boundaries? If that happens, history will remain unkind to that.
If one weighs all these against the major steps the Executive has taken so far, one worries of the direction we are heading. Majorly, first it was withdrawal of fuel subsidy and granting of free fall to the naira; second was the Students Loan Board; third was the nomination of people with hugely tainted integrity as ministers; fourth is the exploration of taxation to be put on citizens and lastly is the rolling out of war drums. In all these, the poor have no breathing space. Worse, the only common good that benefits the poor, education, has come under free market principles because the government can no longer fund it!
By the ninth republic, democracy is really a degraded and doubtful mode of leadership selection and governance. Both the executive and legislative arms need to retract their steps and refocus on the needs of the citizens. Both arms must now convince the innocent electorate of what is being done to exterminate kleptomania and plundering of our national resources. So far, there has been no positive indicators of relief. The major responsibility of the president is not to entrench capitalism and stand up for the West and America, but to tackle basic problems of living of the citizenry. Nigeria must not sink into corruption and anxiety.
Yunusa is the Executive Director Socioeconomic and Environmental Advocacy Centre, Zaria
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