Wanted: Tinubu’s one-point agenda

Your column on the above subject in yesterday’s issue of Daily Trust refers please. I completely disagree with you that Tinubu should concentrate on one agenda at a time. If we want our leaders to solve our problems, we should change the way we select our leaders.

As long as we allow moneybags to decide who runs for what office we will never have good leaders. And such leaders will never be concerned about the interests of the common man. They only worry about winning the next election apart from their own interests. Because they spend so much to get elected, they are constantly devising ways to recoup their ‘investments’.  

One way to eliminate moneybags from dominating our political process is to foster grassroots politics nationwide. Another way of neutralising moneybags is to enforce the assets declaration law for all elected and appointed officers at all levels of government and public companies.

In fact, it is not late for us to demand that Tinubu starts with the just appointed cabinet members. Of course, they say charity begins at home. He should lead by example by publicly declaring his assets and those of his wife and his adult children and insist those appointed by him and those elected under his watch do the same. 

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Until that happens, we should not take him seriously. That law will discourage all the moneybags and their lackeys from dabbling in politics because they know if they steal from the government their ill-gotten loot will be confiscated and they will be jailed leaving the political arena only for those who genuinely want to serve the people.  

This would also pave the way for grassroots politics to truly take root all over the country. The first step to stamp out money politics is to stop using the delegates system and demand direct election at the nominating stage starting from the lowest levels to the highest. Until Tinubu goes after the people who looted our economy we shouldn’t take him seriously.

So much money has been stolen that if he were to empower EFCC, ICPC, DSS, CCB, CCT, the Police, and the Judiciary, Nigeria would recover trillions of Naira and billions of dollars from the hundreds of looters in the federal and state governments and publicly quoted companies. 

The reason why previous governments like Buhari, GEJ and OBJ didn’t genuinely pursue looters was because they too wanted to loot and as they say, those who are in glass houses don’t throw stones. What they forget is that there is joy in serving your fatherland and is much more than stealing. Stealing destroys the joy of serving the fatherland. That is why we don’t have heroes among our leaders, only villains.  

People like the Sardauna, Shagari and Gowon are very rare. Those are the people Tinubu should look up to and try to emulate. He is said to be fabulously rich and he should not think of using his new position to amass more riches. He should rather copy someone like Rafik Hariri who when he was appointed the Prime Minister of Lebanon used his own money to run the government on realising that the government was broke. At Tinubu’s age, he doesn’t need more money but he should think of what to do for Nigeria to leave a lasting legacy. 

For me, there are four areas that Tinubu should urgently attend to. The first is the falling Naira exchange rate principally caused by the increasing trade deficit occasioned by our unhealthy love for imported goods. Our leaders are almost exclusively to blame for this.

In 2022 alone, our import bill was over N11 trillion against only N6 trillion for export. Tinubu should strive to turn our economy to a trade surplus within 12 months if our naira is to become strong. Let him aim to reverse the situation within his first term, that is, export to double the import bill in the next four years. One good benefit from that would be an increase in job opportunities especially for our teeming youths.  

The second area is our frighteningly rising debt. What is worrying is that most of the debt is the bad type that is not the type that generates revenue. In fact, some of the debt is used to service existing debt – the very worst type. Henceforth the only debt Tinubu should incur is one that should generate enough revenue to more than pay back the debt. That is the only way to strengthen the economy. What this means is that Tinubu should aim to operate only surplus budgets throughout his tenure.  

The third area is the judicious use of resources. The best way to do that is to fully allow the Bureau for Public Procurement (BPP) to perform its statutory functions. This way we would reduce the over-pricing of goods and services currently at over four or five times the market prices. Finally, Tinubu should pay attention to the laudable policy of replacing oil and gas as sources of forex with agriculture and solid minerals. Both GEJ and Buhari throughout their tenures were only paying lip service to the policy which would create huge job opportunities, strengthen the Naira and facilitate the export surplus and budget surplus policies. Admittedly these are tall order, but all doable because where there is a will there is always a way.