Nigeria: Where Is The Hope?

 By Ezinwanne Onwuka

I am smitten with nostalgia when I remember the ‘good old days’. The days when N5,000 could buy a big fowl that would feed a family of six. How much did you buy a fowl last Christmas? 

*Tinubu

Oh! How could I have forgotten that Nigeria’s economy dealt with the majority of us last year so much so that we had no option but to be grateful for life and good health, and watch the clock tick away the minutes?

2023 was tough. 

It was a year of sustained financial misery for many Nigerians. It began with a frenzied naira scarcity that had us buying currency. Had it not been for the Supreme Court which came to the rescue, the barter era could have descended upon us. 

While Nigerians were still recuperating from the harsh effects of the naira crunch, the new president, Bola Tinubu, scrapped the petrol subsidy that has kept the cost of petrol cheap in the country for decades. Nigerians are yet to recover from the impact of that single decision. 

Inflation is reaching for the skies and it is not likely to drop anytime soon; the cost of living has tripled, and Nigerians have had no choice but to sit back and witness the deterioration of the spending power of their currency. The naira is trading for over N1,000 to a United States dollar in the streets, and it has hit a historic low in the official market.

It is alarming. 

Is this the ‘Renewed Hope’ Tinubu promised Nigerians? For certain, I am not the only Nigerian asking this very important question. It is on the lips of the Keke (tricycle) driver who spends half of his daily earnings to refill his fuel tank. It is on the lips of the petty traders who record low sales everyday. Parents and guardians who now struggle to pay their wards extra exorbitant fees are also asking the same question.

Did Tinubu not assure Nigerians that: ‘If you vote for APC, your headache is gone’? Did Tinubu not say that his inauguration as Nigeria’s seventh civilian president is a ‘sublime moment where the prospect of a better future merges with our improved capacity to create that future’? Did Tinubu not promise to ‘remodel our economy to bring about growth and development through job creation, food security and an end of extreme poverty’?

It is almost eight months, and Nigerians have yet to see a turnaround. Is it too early to lose hope of a better life and be sceptical that Tinubu’s government would perform better than the one he succeeded? 

Maybe not.

Ahead of his swearing-in, Tinubu promised to hit the ground running from day one, and many Nigerians believed things were going to change in a twinkle of an eye. We just did not know if it was for better or for worse. 

Tinubu’s manifesto dubbed ‘Renewed Hope ’23’ prioritises the creation of sufficient jobs for the country’s teeming population and ramping up of local production of goods, investing in agriculture and public infrastructure, providing economic opportunities for the poorest Nigerians as well as creating better national security architecture to tackle all forms of insecurity.

 Seven months after taking over as Nigeria’s captain, it seems the unprecedented challenges in Africa’s most populous country, from insecurity to a fiscal crisis, poverty and deepening public discontent with the state, are overwhelming for Tinubu. 

In his first comments as president, Tinubu declared that ‘hope is back for Nigeria’ but the deadly security crises, widespread poverty and hunger, high unemployment and a heavy reliance on dwindling oil revenues have left many frustrated and angry, provoking a mass exodus of mostly young Nigerians in a brain drain crisis known locally as ‘japa’. 

And I ask, where is the hope?

Of course, Mr President  has said time and again that he is not oblivious to the travails of Nigerians against the backdrop of a fractured nation, an ailing economy and spiraling insecurity. ‘I am attuned to the hardships that have come. I have a heart that feels and eyes that see,’ Tinubu said in a nationwide broadcast on October 1, 2023 to mark Nigeria’s 63rd Independence Day anniversary, while assuring that the pains would be short-lived.

Yet, the clock is ticking and the ‘Nigeria where hunger, poverty and hardship are pushed into the shadows of an ever-fading past’ is still very hazy. Indeed, the path to progress will be arduous as Nigerians await the transformative leadership that Tinubu has promised.

*Onwuka is a commentator on public issues (ezinwanne.dominion@gmail.com).