( Published In The Peoples Daily Newspaper, Wednesday Column, 20th November, 2024)
Over the last few weeks, I have been belabouring what has to be done to get Nigeria out of the mess it has plunged into over time. I have suggested several possible pathways to address the nation's many challenges, including political and administrative decisions and citizens’ responses. I have raised alarms several times over the consistent fixations on irrelevancies while we apparently pretend to be serious about repositioning Nigeria, the challenged nation. The situation in Nigeria appears to get worse by the day, despite the government's efforts to correct decades-long structural defects. We are experiencing, again and again, the combined failures of every Nigerian to recognise the errors we keep making and our continued concentration on issues that appeal to emotions rather than provide solutions to real national challenges.
The current Administration has proven to many that it really wants to make a difference with its many daring policies. As we are witnessing, it takes visionary leadership to make difficult decisions in the future. Regardless of the current hardship and the struggles for immediate survival in the country, we cannot afford to lose sight that the president is not intentionally punishing Nigerians. We must recognise the bottom line of the decisions that throw up all the restructuring policies we are dealing with at the moment and, at best, find a way to address the short-term consequences, significantly to minimise the direct impacts on Nigerians and give maximum support to the achievement of the policies’ end goals.
It would be an understatement to say there are challenges facing Nigeria. Nigerians are facing perhaps the most difficult times in the nation's history, with the civil war period being an exception. We have seen theoretically appraised, well-intentioned and approved policies with dismal outcomes because the Nigerian system has been built to oppose changes and frustrate attempts to correct its internal and intrinsic errors. Had it been a standard, well-behaved system, we would conclude that the citizens would be paying the price for the desirable and underway changes, given the efficacies of the ongoing policies. Still, here and now, the truth be told, the case appears different. Going by the nation's pulse, most Nigerians are in agony. Naturally, any well-meaning patriotic Nigerian would ask pertinent questions and raise their voices.
I believe the president and the presidency meant well for the country. Still, as good as they are, the policies have only succeeded in inflicting gruesome pains on the citizens, necessitating critical thoughts, questions and the quest for viable solutions. Policies are not necessarily cast on stones; there is room for improvements, including remedial actions. While a single opinion article like this cannot claim to proffer an absolute elixir to the plethora of challenges facing the most populous black nation in history, I have a few observations that may be considered and could move the needle.
To be noted is the criticism of the opposition against the Tinubu Administration, that we are not a nation ripe for such a sudden leap in attempting to correct our many past errors. Accordingly, the removal of the fuel subsidy has only succeeded in creating unprecedented inflation across all goods, commodities, and other necessary economic exchanges in the country, turning the financial wellness of the citizens into a shadow of what it used to be. We have created an economy where the minimum wage cannot effectively buy a bag of rice, now a little above a hundred thousand naira. This requires a robust response from the present Administration and the ruling party. This is where the media team of the present Administration ought to educate Nigerians and offer assurances that Nigerians are not being taken to where they do not know. I believe President Tinubu needs better policy condiments to improve his present recipes. I will offer one here.
The underlying premise was that the fuel subsidy removal would free enormous resources that we were hitherto reportedly wasting on subsidising fuel for Nigerians, our neighbouring nations and pockets of selfish Nigerians to be diverted meaningfully and that this time around, the freed resources would flow into developmental projects that would directly impact lives of Nigerians. But here we are, eighteen months later, and all we see are the state and local governments receiving bogus monthly allocations without traces of where the monies are going. There is no known policy safeguard to ensure that these freed resources, especially downstream political units, would be put to the best of use. And I stand to be corrected anytime on that.
However, the lack of meaningful and impactful developmental actions at the state and local government levels is increasingly becoming the major contributor to the problems we face today, and that makes the federal government at the centre appear bad and uncaring. And no one, especially in this government, is doing anything serious about this observation or this perspective. Why take away the most important national economic element, fuel subsidy, only to widen the pockets of governors and local government chairpersons, who now apparently misappropriate the money for selfish usages? Or where are the inputs from the other two relevant government levels to alleviate Nigerians' sufferings in the last eighteen months? None! All tongues are wagging at the federal government, while the others are eating the generosity of a resource in silence. The national focus should be on what the sub-national governments do with the unprecedented surplus.
Not a single state has effectively responded to the severe food inflation challenge in the country; all we see is rhetoric that never translated to practical actions and results. However, I am aware that a few states have been embarking on bold agricultural initiatives that seem too experimental, and all have unclear business models. Several seasonal crops take less than six months to harvest and distribute, and we are yet to see any severe state or local government intervention breaking any record in this relatively simple concern. Again, I stand to be correct on this.
However, the states and local governments in the past eighteen months have collected monthly allocations and sat on them as usual, and no one is doing anything serious about it. Nigerians are quiet, probably due to the dire economic situation. I do hope this perspective that I brought up will be considered. We need to point our searchlight to the state and local governments.
However, some self-professed national leaders and activists are more interested in matters that will line their pockets. Summarily, the proceeds of fuel subsidy removal are ending up in private pockets and not circulating as expected while Nigerians are suffering under the guise of paying the price of projected greatness that may never materialise - on time - unless we do the right thing timely and talk where we are supposed to speak.
Every Nigerian has somehow become a hypocrite of sorts. We talk only to gratify our desires and keep mum when we have nothing to gain, or silence would be more beneficial to our personal aggrandisement. We don’t know who to trust again. Just a few days ago, former President Olusegun Obasanjo ranted about the sitting president and warned that unless the INEC chairman and the entire institution were changed, there would not be any free and fair election in the country. This came against the just concluded Edo and Ondo state governorship elections that the ruling party won. I do not possess evidence of rigging or otherwise, just as I know it would be only a product of my own bias to take a position on the outcomes of the events. Yet, many senior citizens take such unsubstantiated positions, and I ask why. This is the same country where every state records perfect victories in elections conducted by the state electoral bodies, and no one is asking questions. But we talk about when an incumbent ruling national party wins reelection in a state the verdict party has controlled for over a decade.
The hard truth has to be told, and it is now. We cannot continue to deceive ourselves, hiding behind all sorts of hypocrisy and biases to undermine the nation’s reach for growth and development. The absurdity of the hypocrisy that defines the interactions of our elite members is perhaps the country's greatest undoing. Those positioned by whatever factor as elders of the land, who are supposed to be the voices that cry for the restoration of the broken systems, have all proved to be vicious snakes, only interested in building advantages for themselves within a weakened system of a dying nation. I have asked again and again, where are our elders? Where are the patriotic voices speaking to the errors clamping down on the country? Where are they? Is it wrong if we are a couple of patriotic citizens who would let go of self-aggrandisement to talk about the real issues bothering Nigeria and keep everyone on their toes, instead of what we have now: supposed leaders talking to have their way and strengthen their positions in reckoning within the country.
Where are the Obasanjo? Where are the Clarks? Where are they across the North, South, West and East? What are they doing when the child is about to be thrown away with all the bathing water? Why has no one considered it necessary to speak to the corruption in the states and the local governments as the major impediment to the natural growth and development of the country? Why isn't anyone bothered about or raising their voices on the state and local government administrations' outright failures to tackle the lingering national food insecurity head-on, given the apparent resources war chest at their command and the responsibility on their heads?
Rather than addressing the country's real problems, we see increasing infighting for political and economic controls among these elements every day. Just last week, former president Olusegun Obasanjo dropped another bombshell; he criticised the current Administration and concluded that the INEC institution must be overhauled for the country to move forward. Do I agree that there is a need to critically rejig the institution to boost the effectiveness of the nation's electoral process and overall democracy? Yes, I wholly do. But do I follow the statement from the former president at a time like this? No! Why? Because it stings a lot of hypocrisy! It does not come from an intention to see changes but to disparage and gain relevance.
The 2003 and 2007 election cycles were the worst in the country. Those elections saw hundreds of Nigerians killed and several others injured majorly by the foot soldiers of the then-ruling party. Elections did not occur in many locations, as intimidation was the order of that dark era. Yet, results were written, and the president hailed the election as peaceful, free and fair. It was the same period we heard of a direct order from the president that the entire South West must be “captured” for the ruling party at all costs.
In 2007, late president Umaru Yaradua lamented after victory about the nature of the victory he claimed. He acknowledged that the election spearheaded by his predecessor was absolutely flawed and irregular. Those elections set up a demonic precedent for elections in the country; writing election results in bedrooms, turning out numbers in millions without actual votes and announcing results of a presidential election while collation was still ongoing were but just a few of the electoral aberrations of the time - in the era of former president Olusegun Obasanjo and his party, PDP. They set up terrible antecedents, infamously called elections of “do or die,” today, they are slamming a better but not perfect system.
This was the same period, and the same people destroyed the institution of the Nigerian legislature. It was the same period in which the National Assembly became possessed of optimum corruption, which continues to this day. They introduced the Ghana-must-go money bags to bribe lawmakers to allow the presidency to have its way on all issues, including removing heads of the same national legislature at will and arbitrarily, laying the foundation of the behemoth corruption that characterises many of our national institutions today. We cannot continue to pretend we don't know all these while the same perpetrators are claiming saints and taking us for a ride.
As of today, the country is economically and technologically backward, and literally, we are pointing accusing fingers at the government in power. But it all began somewhere; how can a nation enjoy meaningful growth and development without access to minimum energy? As of today, in 2024, Nigeria's electricity generation averages 5,000 MW, in a century when serious nations are quickly claiming six to seven digits of megawatts in generated electricity. How can we develop when we pretend as if all is well amid decay? Yet, there was a time not too far in the past when a president decided to budget $16 billion over a period of time to alter the nation's history in power generation and distribution. If all we have today is a mere 5000MW, shouldn't we ask sincerely what happened to the budgeted money? No, as the country wallows in economic underdevelopment that is a direct consequence of our apparent failures to build the necessary infrastructure, we close our mouths while the perpetrators, the past failed leaders, are pointing accusing fingers elsewhere.
Today, we depend almost absolutely on imported products and that wouldn't change any time soon. A nation cannot develop manufacturing strength overnight; yet, we lost our hard-earned developments in manufacturing, all in a period of eight years between 1999 and 2007. We watched the Nigeria railway, the Nigeria Airways, and hundreds of national manufacturing assets collapse as we claimed we were privatising them for greater efficiency and effectiveness. Today, the same people who saw the Aluminium Smelting Company Ikot Ekpene die an untimely - not natural - death are today saints who are pointing out the errors of others; and Nigerians are quiet.
We have got serious problems as a nation, but the most worrisome of our challenges is the fact that we pretend a lot. We ignore the problems and chase shadows in the name of searching for political relevance, social relevance and a whole host of irrelevancies for our many emotional attachments. Until we get to the point where we are ready to stop and face reality; by speaking truth to the real problems of the country, if not, we are just beginning.
*GOD BLESS THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA!*
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