AMONG the indelible dynamics of Nigerian living that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has foisted is the culture of uncertainty that pervades the land. The only thing certain today is uncertainty.
We did not get here suddenly. Tinubu did a great job of under-studying his predecessor Muhammadu Buhari. Tinubu’s commitment to being worse than Buhari drives his vision of unleashing a version of cruelty on Nigerians that makes the remarkably aloof Buhari an angel.
Buhari admitted he was a slow reader, blaming that for Nigeria’s slower attention to important international agreements like the African Continental Free Trade Area, AfCFTA. The world’s largest free trade area aims at making the 55 countries of the African Union, and its eight Regional Economic Communities (RECs), a single market, to enable the free flow of goods and services across the continent and boost Africa’s position in the global commerce. Nigeria lost a lot by being the last country to sign AfCFTA. Tinubu, unlike Buhari, claims intellectual prowess. The economy is said to be his forte and he has degrees to prove it.
What have we seen? The economy is on a spin that drains everything, hits security in the worst places, hurts food production, and set off increase in prices of everything. Often, there is scarcity of goods and services, making their prices and quality side issues. Tinubu and company gloat about these achievements that they call reforms. Lives are at stake, but they have a preference for statistics that say they are doing well. The statistics are elegiac, grim, gloomy.
Our President could not wait for 15 months to get himself another presidential jet, ordered a second for the Vice President, among other wastes and drains on the fragile economy. He is not affronted by World Bank statistics that mention 15 years as the time frame for his reforms to bear fruits. Who would be around then? And in what stage of shattered shape? What type of Nigeria would there be by then?
None of these would be Tinubu’s headache. He said being President of Nigeria was his life-long ambition. With his mission accomplished, what is left is for him to continue assuming the toga of a leader, saviour of Nigeria, possibly founder of modern Nigeria, if his policies do not complete the demolitions that Buhari’s divisiveness and rugged obliteration of democratic inclinations, excluding elections which he twisted to worse than the most obtuse selections. People are not safe. The future has long been compromised. Millions of children are out of school. More millions are mal-nourished. They are all candidates for a blighted future that statistics alone cannot illustrate.
Tinubu sees what he wants to see. He hears only the ululations of brigades of sycophants who have tied their existence to how much comfort they create for Tinubu. If Tinubu is happy, they leverage the situation for their uncommon good.
Since they live above the dreary circumstances of Nigerians and have made generous provisions for themselves, nothing else matters except the most recent struggles to prove all over again that Tinubu has loads of money and does not need Nigeria’s money. Such utterances do not match the relentless agenda of prioritising presidential comfort at a time of unprecedented suffering.
Have we seen Tinubu make any sacrifice? Anyone who contests this assertion should name a seeming sacrifice that Tinubu has made. Tinubu has shown a poor capacity for lifting a finger to improve the condition of Nigerians. Under him, insecurity has festered, job losses are normal and the uncaring attitudes that display his comfortable life tend to raise more questions about the purpose of the administration.
From one bumbling to the other, his policies are as fleeting as the uncertainties they generate. Labour strikes over fuel prices. While negotiations continue, there are more price increases. Fuel has no price that can be used for planning.
Like every product, the price is whatever you pay when you purchase it. The President, the great economist, set up a 30-person economic team in March, boasting then that the results of the team’s work would soon by evident. Prices have maintained a steady climb in the past seven months of the economic team’s existence.
A growing hustle is the high-level offering of explanations for Tinubu’s tardiness from those who are still proud of Tinubu, are expecting favours from him, are overwhelmed by the underwhelming performance of Tinubu or as has more often become the case want to be seen and heard as national leaders.
Of all the incoherence that buffets the South East, Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Honourable Benjamin Kalu, who relishes fawning Tinubu, is ferociously pushing a bill for the establishment of Bola Ahmed Tinubu Federal University of Nigerian Languages in Aba, Abia State. He is on the quest at a time the Federal Government cannot fund its universities. Why Tinubu University? The only answer you are likely to get is, “Why not?”.
Kalu has scored high in a brewing battle for Tinubu’s attention.
“The President is aware Nigerians are hungry, he knows Nigerians are suffering; he is a street person, he knows the street very well, he visits the FCT, he is not a President that is locked up in a room, whether kidnapping or not, he moves around in his car at night, he is very courageous,” former Abia State Governor, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu said on Channel TV’s Politics Today. What does Senator Kalu want from Tinubu?
How has the President being on the streets of Abuja every night improved security, halted rising prices or made petrol available? Orji’s meddlesomeness is top grade.
He is locked in a leadership contest with Benjamin over control of All Progressives Congress, APC, in Abia State. Orji easily assumed leadership of the party in the State, pressing his credentials as a former Governor in the same era, 1999-2007, with Tinubu, a ranking Senator, who was Chief Whip when Benjamin was a Committee Chairman in the House of Representatives.
Orji was once the access to Tinubu. The tide has turned. Benjamin as the Deputy Speaker has more access to the President. Orji is watching his leadership being eroded by Benjamin who repeatedly reminds us that he is No. 6 in the national order of precedence. Orji is much lower in that ladder, without a distinguished ranking. Indications that Benjamin is the APC governorship candidate in 2027 do not sit well with Orji. They are both from Abia North.
Their personal politics is at the centre of their frenzied defence of Tinubu that border on the ridiculous. Tinubu-pleasing will serve them well in the days ahead. Whether Tinubu goes to London or Paris would not have bothered anybody if the country was running well. There are (in)decisions that cannot be made in the President’s absence. Many of his aides and Ministers are obviously pounding above their weights. The President does not know some of them. Briefs are not clear. The administration’s policy thrusts are darker than the darkest nights of political intrigues.
One thing is certain in the midst of the uncertainties – sooner than later Tinubu will be on a working vacation again. There is no point guessing if his choice destination will be London or Paris or both.
Finally…
HONOURABLE Minister of Works, His Excellency, Engineer, Dr. David Umahi has hired a couple of senior lawyers to stop a freedom of information enquiry that a journalist made on the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway. Does the Federal Government still have so much money that it prefers to pay legal fees instead of a simple answer to a simple question?
THE Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has conquered shame. If not, after refusing to arrest Yahaya Bello, former Governor of Kogi State, it would not be making arrests. Bello, on the International watchlist, came on his own volution to EFCC, he was allowed to go until EFCC was ready.
DOES anyone know what Nigeria earns from gold mining and other solid minerals? Are these earnings in the federation account?
ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues
