PRESIDENT Bola Ahmed Tinubu has only a few who love him. Some of them were on the streets in the past days to express their frustration about what their Jagaban has become though many were still not sure what they expected the Tinubu presidency to be.
Of course, the tinier group whose face the President sees daily loves his Office. It farms out opportunities and patronages it generates which the President’s favourites grab in mindlessness scrambles that point to their purpose. It is also their turn.
In return, they make all types of excuses for the President. Without meaning to say so, they have consistently implied that the responsibilities were beyond Tinubu. When some said so last year, people thought they were comments made during campaigns.
His one year has been founded in lack of direction, narrow-minded decisions that cannot provide strong platforms for building a nation that was strangulated during eight years of Muhammadu Buhari. Tinubu said during the campaigns that he would continue Buhari’s good works.
Tinubu has exceeded Buhari in nepotism. Denied of any “remnants of Goodluck Jonathan’s administration”, Tinubu is drowning in a sea of hopelessness that his policies produce. For the enormity of his assignment, he needs hope more than ordinary Nigerians. Where he promised “Renewed Hope” we are left wondering what the hope is, and its unknown “renewed” components.
Things are really bad for people to compare Muhammadu Buhari and Tinubu. Their telling conclusion is that Buhari is by far better than Tinubu. They point at the price of food and insecurity to drive their conclusion.
What is Tinubu doing about these? How can people prefer Buhari to Tinubu? How not? They want answers to where we are today. They get excuses.
Nigerians fill the streets hungry, angry and the President is regurgitating the same promises he has been making for more than a year. Does he realise that the campaigns are long over?
What did he intend to do as President? Is his presidency all about weekly announcements of appointees who seem, like the President, unable and unwilling to mitigate the troubles that Nigerians face?
Nigerians are hungry and the President is in search of their sponsors. Those who lost elections, possibly envious of the President’s landmark achievements, mobilise people to the streets. Not an appeal or kind words that provide a direction.
The President, the strategist, is distant, and asks people to be patient. He needs time. He is unable to articulate a timeline and what he would do with the time. He has exhausted this time-buying strategy that he used in navigating the national minimum wage.
Did he need time to fetch two presidential jets? What time did he have to start the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway in less than a year in office? Moving the Vice-President into a N21 billion needed no patience or excuses.
The verdict is that Tinubu has time for things that interest him. He quickly mobilises the resources to execute his important trips all over the world. We have watched with dismay the tardiness exhibited in these trips that have been famous for the plane load of delegates.
How does a country deep in debts manage the flamboyance that has indexed Tinubu’s presidency? What does one make of his trips that have consumed billions of Naira? Yes, we should be patient, waiting for what?
Will the President ever be tired of excuses? When will he take responsibility for his failings?
His insensitivity is startling. There is always someone to blame for the regression of Nigeria. Never Tinubu who Nigerians have as President. When Nigerians rattle the President, he reminds them that there are Governors and local government Chairmen.
Is Tinubu admitting that he is not the only one who has failed? Let us share the failure, he seems to say.
The Governors doubtlessly have failed with only a few doing anything close to reflecting the resources that get to them. Nigerians in discussing the failures of Tinubu do so because he is the President whose decisions got us here. We are not mistaking him for our Governors.
“Let me state categorically that this is yet another case of misrepresentation of facts. The said funds were part of the World Bank-assisted NG-CARES project—a Programme for results intervention,” Governor Seyi Makinde, said of the oft-repeated presidential achievement of distributing N570 billion to the States.
“The World Bank facilitated an intervention to help States in Nigeria with COVID-19 Recovery. CARES means COVID-19 Action Recovery Economic Stimulus.”
Why would the President not communicate this “achievement” clearly? Should Nigerians know how bad the economy is? We are not told. We only guess how bad things are. We use rising prices of foods and goods, high borrowing costs, and hardships associated with various aspects of living in Nigeria to judge the state of the economy.
When one adds the scourge of insecurity and uncontrollable cost of access to medications, medical services, it impresses us that we have more reasons to agree that things are hard for “everybody”.
Everybody is a useful word to make us feel we are the same. Tinubu does not feel anything, at least, not what we feel. His claims in the needless national address on the protests confirmed it – he had nothing to say. The “I know how you feel” in that national broadcast was sheer mockery. His decisions show his indifference to the plight of Nigerians.
National poverty in the first year of Tinubu is as traumatic as it is thematic. Poverty is unique. It is beneficial to those who use it as a whip to keep the people disinterested in asking the deep questions about Nigeria’s decline. When Tinubu removed the fuel subsidy, with immediate effect, what did he expect? Why does his government still subsidise fuel and Nigerians buy it at unaffordable prices? Is the collapse of the Naira responsible? Removal of fuel subsidy was a decision taken before Tinubu thought about it. He talked about it during the campaigns, again, without thinking about it.
Things are worse than the pictures that are painted. We do not understand Nigeria enough to explain its dilemmas. Comparisons with other countries should at best be contrasts. Nigeria has moved from being a mystery to a mystique. Measures used to gauge economic situations elsewhere fail woefully in these parts as no scintilla of efforts is safe from the dubity that beclouds what we do.
Nothing is more opposed to Tinubu than his failures. Protesters retorted that hunger, insecurity, rising prices, high cost of governments, the collapse of the Naira, expensive fuels and hiked electricity tariffs were the sponsors of the protests. Security agencies harassing individuals and organisations is not a solution. The poor tailor who was arrested for taking on the business of sewing some colours into a “foreign flag” was doing his work – sewing. He will cobble other colours together when next he gets a chance.
The President should punish the “sponsors” that the protesters identified. They are still with us. If the President arrests them, we would all be better for it. Does President Tinubu appreciate that the flagging performances of his administration have consequences? Does he care? Can he care? Has he given up on Nigeria?
Finally…
NIGERIA had some exciting moments at the Olympic Games that had not resulted in any medals when I wrote this. I wish the remaining contestants lots of good luck.v
DEATHS from the protests were avoidable. Our security agencies need more lessons on managing these situations. Lives are important, and those who terminate them should be accountable. Stray bullets as cause of deaths – why live bullets? – is inadequate accountability.
THOSE busy talking about Tinubu’s second term should help him make the best of his current assignment for the benefit of Nigerians. If he is already done with his first term, they should also tell us.
PS: If this piece is incoherent, I have succeeded in reflecting Nigeria.
ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues
