By Ikechukwu Amaechi
In the last four months since Bola Tinubu became Nigeria’s president, many Nigerians have watched in utter horror as the administration continues to fumble. The missteps are simply unacceptable, more so for a government that claims to be on a self-assigned mission of renewing the hope of longsuffering citizens. But I doubt if any discerning Nigerian is surprised at the embarrassing slipups and gaffes. In fact, what would have been surprising is a situation where Tinubu, in Aso Rock, levels with Nigerians.
It is in the character of those who are presently allocating the country’s collective values, authoritatively, to deploy propaganda and lies in governance. To them subterfuge and outright sleight of the hand are legitimate governance tools. But are they? I daresay they are not because government propaganda threatens democratic self-governance. In other words, it is an enemy of democracy.
As U.S.
Senator William Fulbright noted in his 1970 book, The Pentagon Propaganda
Machine: “There have been too many instances of lack of candour and of outright
misleading statements in treating with the (American) public. Too often we have
been misled by the very apparatus that is supposed to keep us factually
informed or, in the very strictest sense, honestly guided.”
The Tinubu administration has
chosen, deliberately, neither to keep Nigerians factually informed nor honestly
guided, so much so that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, speaking through
his media aide, Phrank Shaibu, recently quipped that “if the Tinubu government
says it is morning, go outside to verify if the sun is shining.” That may sound
like an exaggeration. But the actions of the government make it extremely
difficult not to believe that this is an administration that lies
compulsively.
But by so doing, the government
is hurting itself and squandering the already depleted stock of goodwill of the
few Nigerians still willing to give it the benefit of the doubt because as Levi
Obijiofor noted in an October 12, 2016 article in The Sun newspaper: “The
easiest way a government and a ruling political party can dilute the faith, the
confidence, and the authority placed in them by the people is to undervalue the
citizens and to assume that civil society is naïve, easy to fool, uncritical
and always willing to accept half-truths.”
What is even most disconcerting
is that most of these lies are needless. Truth would have been apposite
particularly given the fact that like pregnancy, most of the events or issues
the administration is lying about, sooner than later would become public
knowledge.
Take for instance the
controversy over what was agreed during Tinubu’s meeting with the United Arab
Emirates President, Mohamed bin Zayad Al Nahyan, in Abu Dhabi recently. Tinubu
on his way from India after attending the G20 meeting on observer status
stopped over in UAE. The mere fact that he had the presence of mind to raise
the issue of visa ban and suspension of flights to Nigeria by both Etihad and
Emirates Airlines was commendable. His predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari, the man
who threw Nigeria into this pitiable ditch couldn’t care less.
If the Tinubu government had
levelled with Nigerians on the outcome of the meeting, he would still have
earned some plaudits. By meeting with the UAE President, he had thawed the
diplomatic ice and discussions on how to proceed from there would have been the
next logical step.
Most times, diplomacy is not a 100-metre dash. It is a marathon that requires patience and skills. But this government can’t help itself when it comes exaggerating things. So, Tinubu’s spokesman, Ajuri Ngelale, went to town with Abuja’s version of what transpired at the meeting and he was emphatic.
“President Bola Tinubu and President of the
United Arab Emirates, Mohamed bin Zayad Al Nahyan, on Monday in Abu Dhabi, have
finalized a historic agreement, which has resulted in the immediate cessation
of the visa ban placed on Nigerian travellers,” Ngelale ululated in a
statement. “Furthermore, by this historic agreement, both Etihad Airlines and
Emirates Airlines are to immediately resume flight schedules into and out of
Nigeria.”
More than three weeks after
these emphatic claims were made, nothing has happened – the airlines have
neither resumed flights nor have Nigerians started getting UAE visas. And
nothing will happen simply because no such agreements were reached. Apparently
embarrassed, the UAE countered the Abuja narrative, but with some finesse.
Short
of saying Nigeria lied, a statement by the UAE government said both leaders had
during the meeting, “explored opportunities for further bilateral
collaboration” with the hope of “reinforcing ties between the UAE and Nigeria.”
Some days later, an official from the Gulf state told the CNN: “There are no
changes on the Nigeria/UAE travel status so far.” One needs to have penchant for
saying untruths to make the claims the Tinubu presidency made, knowing full
well that the UAE will give its own account of what happened and that
subsequent events will bear out whoever was telling the truth out.
Nigerians were still dealing
with that when the NASDAQ bell brouhaha broke. Last week, Ngelale came out with
another fib: “The world’s second largest stock exchange, the National
Association of Securities Dealers Automatic Quotation System, NASDAQ, on Wednesday
in the world’s financial capital, invited President Tinubu to ring the closing
bell, making him the first African President to ever receive the honour.”
Of course, Tinubu wasn’t the
first to be accorded that honour, if, indeed, ringing NASDAQ bell is an honour.
It has since been established that Malawian President, Jakaya Kikwete, rang the
same bell as far back as September 21, 2011. In any case, ringing the US Stock
Exchange bell in the Wall Street is a bigger deal than NASDAQ and President
Goodluck Jonathan and others had done so in the past.
But assuming, without conceding that Tinubu is, indeed, the first African leader to ring the NASDAQ bell, so what? What does it matter to Nigerians? How would that affect the current Nigerian condition? Will it burnish Nigeria’s sullied image in the comity of nations, solve the debilitating problem of insecurity, and tackle hunger and the humiliating poverty in the country?
On August 27, the self-same Ngalele
whose reputation as Abuja’s fib master has been firmly established, issued a
statement where US Presidential Envoy and Assistant Secretary of State for
African Affairs, Ambassador Molly Phee, was quoted as saying: “President Joe
Biden is asking to meet with you (President Tinubu) on the sidelines of UNGA and
you are the only African leader he has requested to meet. It is a mark of his
high regard for your leadership.”
Again, that did not happen. The
UNGA ended and Biden went back to Washington DC without casting as much as a
glance in Tinubu’s direction. So, why is President Tinubu obsessed with being
the first to do everything? Some say that he already sees himself as the
greatest Yoruba leader ever, surpassing the achievements of Chief Obafemi
Awolowo and Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. Well, he may well be.
Some of his minions argue that
Awolowo was only a regional leader and now Tinubu is Nigeria’s president. But
how he can claim superiority over Obasanjo remains to be seen. But to his
people, he is looking beyond Nigeria as he sees himself as one of Africa’s greatest
leaders. Well, he may well become. After all, he is Nigeria’s president either
by hook or crook. But he cannot get there as controversially as he became
president.
The policies of the Tinubu
administration in the last four months have been a cocktail of lies and
propaganda. Whether it is the fuel subsidy removal gambit, or the
Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPC, claiming it had obtained an
Afrexim Bank loan of $3 billion with which it would help stabilise the naira or
even the so-called Student Loan Act, which he ceremoniously signed on June 12,
it is sheer sophistry on display. That is the tragedy of the Tinubu era. Truth
be told, lies and propaganda as governance tools will neither do his
administration any good nor take Nigeria to the golden era we all crave for.
*Amaechi is the publisher of TheNiche newspaper
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