OPINION: Reasons to worry for Nigeria

ALL All Progressives Congress [APC] political party regimes rule by lies, subterfuge, propaganda, deception and much more. Check out the regime of the former President, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari [2015-2023]. He started by lying that there was no subsidy on petrol and that the claims of payment of trillions of Naira for subsidy by previous administrations were fraudulent. He ended up paying more money for the phantom subsidy than all his predecessors combined.

Buhari’s Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi said in January 2016, eight months after the APC acceded to power, that petrol subsidy was gone. He said the evidence was in the fact that payment of subsidy was not provided for in that year’s budget. And that Buhari being a man of squeaky integrity and credibility will never violate the budget. On both counts Amaechi lied. Humongous amounts of subsidies were paid that year and in subsequent years. And, Buhari did not just violate the 2016 budget, he raped it.

What Amaechi said: “We are not saying oil subsidy has been removed, but check it in the budget; it is not there, so where would he [Buhari] pay from? And if you know the president very well, he would not spend anything outside the budget. I am one of the vocal ministers who can say it has been removed but I am just saying it is not in the budget”.

Buhari also said from the onset that the Naira will not be devalued under his watch. But the currency lost its value the most during his regime. It was for eight years but for many Nigerians it looked like eternity. As it now appears, Buhari’s record in the bastardization of the Naira may yet be surpassed by the fumbling regime of his controversial successor, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu. His unmanaged and thoughtless floating of the Naira has become a rolling nightmare that could end in unmitigated disaster for the country, supposing we are not there already. Buhari also promised that he would bequeath on Nigeria credible electoral process which will deliver transparent outcomes. He failed. Instead, he threw Nigeria into turmoil with the process and result of elections in 2023 that had been adjudged as among the worst in 24 years since the return of democracy.

And here we go again- Deja vu 2.0. Tinubu’s style and approach to rulership may be different from Buhari’s, but they are driven by the same philosophy of lies, propaganda, subterfuge and deceit. But Tinubu’s situation is compounded by the growing signs of unpreparedness for the presidency, his unravelling confusion and his legitimacy burdens accentuated by huge credibility deficits. He has reduced statecraft to personal whims and policy formulation to trial and error. And what a huge, nay life threatening, price Nigerians are paying. To think that he is less than three months in office.

The tragedy of the APC regime of Tinubu is that he has started policy flip flops that will disappoint the West that he has been grovelling to please and inflict more privations on Nigerian citizens. Just last week, one of the megaphones of the West and their Bretton Woods institutions- the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund-, Bloomberg news organisation, lamented the apparent looming reversals of Tinubu’s policies that wormed him, even if temporarily, into the hearts of some capitalists and globalists. Under the headline ‘Is Nigerian President Bola Tinubu losing his nerve’, Bloomberg wrote on August 18 that “Hours after it was announced that inflation had accelerated to a fresh 18-year high of 24.1%, he [Tinubu] suspended increases in gasoline prices, while the acting central bank governor this [last] week warned foreign exchange traders to stop betting against the naira.

“The moves appear to undermine the two biggest steps he took after taking power in May: doing away with fuel subsidies that had cost the government billions of dollars a year and allowing the currency [Naira] to trade more freely. “Both of those policy decisions are in the interest of the long-term health of the sickly Nigerian economy, yet they have emptied the pockets of ordinary Nigerians. The pump price of gasoline has more than doubled and that, together with the plunging naira, has sent food and other goods prices higher”.

 

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The US-based Bloomberg further reports that the Tinubu self-inflicted pain has left him between the devil and the deep blue sea. It said: “While the government has been scrambling to soften some of that pain [on Nigerians], including handling out subsidised grain and deferring taxes, investors- initially enthused by the president’s decisiveness- have [now] taken a dim view of his wavering. [Nigeria’s] dollar debt was the worst emerging-market performer on two days [last] week after the fuel price was capped. ”

As far as inflation is concerned, the damage has been done. The spending power of Nigerians has been severely eroded. Now unless he can extricate himself from the trap that he’s created, Tinubu will have both angered his citizens and disappointed the market”. Indeed he has. He will need more than a miracle to dig himself out given the prevailing trust deficit between him and many Nigerians.

Part of the implication from the foregoing is that the West will throw Tinubu under the bus unless he doubles down on his poverty-inducing twin policies of petrol subsidy removal and floating of the Naira. His job is cut out for him and there are no longer easy options. What appears to be the only way that Tinubu can sustain being temporarily in the good books of the US, UK and Europe is to levy war on Niger Republic in the name of restoring to power its former President Mohammed Bazoum. He was sacked by the military on July 26. It’s a war no Nigerian wants. Except Tinubu. Nigerians do not want any war. And Nigeria cannot afford to prosecute any war. France and US have strategic interests in Niger and they have a combined troop number of about 3000. They are more than capable of fighting but we still don’t want war to rage in a country with which we share about 1600 kilometres of porous borders.

In addition, Nigerian Armed Forces are fully engaged in the domestic front with troops deployed to more than 20 states to fight terrorists, Jihadists and sundry criminals. In addition it has been predicted that floods will ravage close to 20 states in the coming weeks. It happens every year yet our leaders have contrived not to know how to handle the floods and the aftereffects. But the president badly wants to fight a war. It is inconceivable that Tinubu does not realise that ‘oji oso agbakwuru ogu amagh na-ogu bu onwu’. Does the president not know that rushing into war assures certain death? And death in the Igbo understanding of that saying is not limited to loss of human lives. It is that and much more. Are we ready for such national tragedy at this time?

A time that the belief in the current political leadership is at the lowest ebb. A time when Tinubu through his poorly thought out policies has pauperized majority of Nigerians. A time that the country’s civil service union claimed that dimensionally poor citizens had jumped from 133 million to over 187 million of the estimated 210 million people. The truth is that there’s no good war and no good time to fight. Nigerians must do everything legit to rescue their country from a man whose capacity to make beneficial judgements [fuel subsidy removal, Naira devaluation and N8,000 cash transfer to the poor of the poor household per month/six months] has been called to question at least three times in as many months. The clock is ticking for Nigeria.

AUTHOR: UGO ONUOHA

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Articles published in our Graffiti section are strictly the opinion of the writers and do not represent the views of Ripples Nigeria or its editorial stand.

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