ASO ROCK WATCH: As Tinubu suspends cybersecurity levy. One other talking point

Last week, President Bola Tinubu suspended the controversial 0.5% cybersecurity levy on electronic banking transactions.

One other story from the seat of power, Aso Rock villa, was tracked for your reading delight

1. Tinubu suspends cybersecurity levy

On May 14, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, while briefing newsmen after a Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting at the State House, Abuja, disclosed that Tinubu had ordered the suspension of the cybersecurity levy policy and ordered its review.

“The position of government is that that policy has been suspended. That policy has been put on hold,” Idris said.

The President’s suspension of the policy and call for its review may have shown him as a responsive leader and further positions his administration as caring and sensitive to policy on citizens.

To his advantage, therefore, it portrays him as a listening President who is willing to tweak policies in order to meet the needs of the people.

On the flip side, however, the suspension may have exposed the administration’s reported weakness in subjecting intended policies to critical review, taking the mood of the nation in consideration, before executing them.

One other talking point

2. Cleaning Ogoni land

Tinubu, on May 15, promised that his administration would pursue “diligently and honourably” the Ogoni land cleanup programme.

The President made the promise when he received members of the Supreme Council of Traditional Rulers of Ogoni, Rivers State, at the State House, Abuja.

“There is equally the Ogoni cleanup programme that I inherited. That will be pursued diligently and honourably,” he said.

Though Tinubu’s promise may sound cheery, for the Ogonis, the protracted cleanup programme which he inherited from the immediate past Muhammadu Buhari administration clearly illustrates tardiness of governance and lack of transparency on issues stalling the project.

Beyond his promise, therefore, lies the need to conduct a thorough probe on why the programme has failed so far, and revelations on how the monumental sums injected in it were expended.

If anything, the President’s promise may only serve as a subtle strategy to douse the tension that the failed cleanup had generated in the volatile Niger Delta region.

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