Who Will Tell Mr President?

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Who will tell Bola Tinubu that his 16-month-old presidency has reduced Nigeria to a living hell? Who will tell Mr President that there is great suffering in the land? Who will tell him to stop insulting Nigerians by his off-handed comments? Who will tell Tinubu that Nigerians are reeling from his ill-digested reforms and the incessant careless, brusque and inconsiderate jibes from the likes of Senate President Godswill Akpabio at the expense of longsuffering Nigerians is adding insult to injury?

*Tinubu

But wait a minute, is Mr President aware that he has reduced fellow citizens to hewers of wood and drawers of water? Chances are that he is. At least he admitted that much in his 2024 Independence Day speech on October 1, when he said: “Fellow Nigerians, as I address you today, I am deeply aware of the struggles many of you face in these challenging times. Our administration knows that many of you struggle with rising living costs and the search for meaningful employment.”

But does he know that while Nigerians are withering away in penury, the First Family and their cronies are luxuriating in obscene opulence, so much so that First Lady Oluremi Tinubu has become the country’s undisputed donor-in-chief? In just one month, she made a whopping donation of N1.5 billion, including head-turning N1 billion for the horticultural landscaping of her alma mater, Obafemi Awolowo University campus in Ile-Ife, Osun State.

Beyond telling Tinubu that hunger stalks the land as never before and parents are now skipping meals to feed their kids, time has come when Nigerians should demand, as of right, to know his agenda. What exactly is Tinubu, whom some Nigerians have niftily nicknamed T-Pain, doing in power? Okay, he promised Nigerians a better tomorrow with his renewed hope agenda and the All Progressives Congress, APC, vuvuzelas ululate that the intent is to grow the economy, lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty and create an enabling business environment.

The question is how?

On May 17, 2024, Vice President Kashim Shettima said the agenda is a transformative policy thrust aimed at repositioning Nigeria as a prime global investment destination. And penultimate week, Tinubu, in his Independence Day speech, claimed that the reforms engendered by his renewed hope agenda are showing positive signs.

“We are beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel,” one of which was Nigeria’s attraction of “foreign direct investments worth more than $30 billion in the last year,” he claimed. Of course, that is not true. No such huge capital importation has taken place under Tinubu’s baleful watch.

He used the incredible accomplishments of Nigerians – men and women in the arts, sciences, sports, technology and commerce – as a totem pole to hoist the country’s greatness. But while it is true that Nigerians, individually, are excelling globally, they are pulling off those extraordinary feats in spite of, not because of the opportunities provided by the country, particularly in the last decade since the APC happened on Nigeria.

Truth is, Nigeria more than ever before has become a graveyard of creativity and innovation. Rather than promote excellence, the country rewards indolence and stifles ingenuity. Nigeria is a killjoy, which explains why most professionals – doctors, nurses, engineers, teachers, journalists, etc. – are fleeing.

Something went tragically wrong in the last ten years of the APC incubus with the prudish weaponisation of the country’s fault lines by self-serving leaders. Granted, the problem didn’t start with Tinubu’s predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari. But his incompetence and absolute lack of capacity to manage the country’s diversities made it worse.

So, when Tinubu claims that his administration took over the leadership of the country at a critical juncture when the economy faced many headwinds and physical security highly impaired, he was right. But that is only one side of the coin, the other side being that Tinubu’s embarrassing cluelessness has made Buhari look like a superstar.

His claim that his reforms are beginning to show positive signs is hollow rhetoric. First, there are no reforms so called. But more importantly, today, Nigeria plumbs the depths of misery and destitution because none of the major indicators of Human Development Index, HDI – life expectancy, expected years of schooling, gross national income per capita – is in the green zone.

The real consequences of his so-called reforms are the worst cost of living crisis in a generation, unprecedented levels of unemployment, worst inflation in over two decades and a highly depreciated national currency. This week, the World Bank said the Naira was one of the worst-performing currencies in sub-Sahara Africa with a year-to-date depreciation of about 43 percent as at August 2024, and only at par with the Ethiopian Birr, and South Sudanese Pound.

Building a united, prosperous and peaceful country takes more than preposterous clichés. Under Tinubu’s watch, Nigeria is still wracked by religious and ethnic strife, bloodcurdling banditry and benumbing economic challenges. Sixteen months into the Tinubu presidency, Nigeria still tethers on the brink. So, he has no bragging rights whatsoever, not the least with the voodoo monetary and fiscal policies of his government that continue to misalign.

Granted, those who pretend to be wearing patriotism like a badge of honour demur. But not admitting the fact that Nigeria faces existential crisis is to bury our heads in the sand. That is a dippy game to play in the circumstance.

So, back to the dubious renewed hope agenda. Rather than renewing hope, Tinubu’s ill-digested reforms have pushed most citizens into the dark hole of despair. We are a prayerful people and optimism oils the wheels of our everyday living. We pray and hope that tomorrow will be better. Let’s be clear: It helps when a people are having a rough patch, as Nigerians are right now, to look on the sunny side of life. That is where hope, which simply means being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness around us, comes in.

Nigerians believe in the wise saying of Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights icon, that “we must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” They wake up every morning believing that today is going to be better than yesterday even when there is no basis for such optimism. For them, hope is transcendental, a powerful force and the most important factor to overcoming life’s biggest challenges. Without hope, for most Nigerians, everything is lost.

But it is problematic as a governance tool because hope is neither a strategy nor a destination. In his open letter to former U.S. President Barack Obama in January 2009, Dr Benjamin Akande, an economist and Dean of the Business School at Webster University in St. Louis, wrote: “The fact remains that hope will not reduce housing foreclosures. Hope does not stop a recession. Hope cannot create jobs. Hope will not prevent catastrophic failures of banks. Hope is not a strategy.” Obama hearkened to Akande’s advice and the rest is history. Though an apostle of hope himself, he rolled up his sleeves and America was the better for it. 

Tinubu needs the same advice because hope is neither a plan nor a course of action. Action is more important than words and careful planning is more valuable than lofty ideas. Unfortunately for Nigeria, he is no Obama. Anyone in doubt should sit back and read once again his Independence Day speech. It was pedestrian. There were no new, bold ideas that can address the myriad challenges confronting us, just a regurgitation of overused hoary rhetoric.

In the last couple of weeks, Tinubu has been in Europe on “vacation”. While he is away, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, increased the pump price of petrol yet again, the second time in one month and the fourth since he became president. At his inauguration on May 29, 2023, petrol sold for N198 per litre. Today, it sells for N1,030 per litre after the 15 per cent hike on October 9 from the subsisting N898 September price, which in itself was also a 45 per cent hike from the N617 July 2023 price. 

In all, petrol price has increased by an unprecedented 428 per cent in the 16 months of the Tinubu presidency and still counting. On Monday, the national grid collapsed twice in 24 hours. Data from the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, showed that it has collapsed about 227 times in the last 14 years.

Tinubu’s renewed hope agenda has led to the wiping out of the country’s once thriving middle-class. This is no way to renew a people’s hope. It is fraudulent to claim otherwise. But who will tell Mr President that Nigerians need to be alive today to enjoy the glorious dawn that only him envisions?

*Amaechi is the publisher of TheNiche (ikechukwuamaechi@yahoo.com