Showing posts with label Brian Paul Klass. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brian Paul Klass. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 7, 2024

Tinubu’s Unhappy 8 Months In Office

 By Dan Onwukwe

Can the news get any uglier for President Bola Tinubu than it is already? It’s not yet half-time, but as Tinubu, wherever he is in Paris, France right now, he may be pondering anxiously where his government has taken Nigerians in just eight months of his presidency, an office he so desperately wanted, and got in most unquestionable fashion. He must also be thinking how much harder it is being the President of Nigeria.

*Tinubu

Truth is, there’s big trouble everywhere. Even in Abuja, his official residence, insecurity has squeezed everyone to a corner. Kidnappers are daily on the prowl, taking their victims at ease, and demanding  hefty ransom. First Lady, Remi Tinubu had recently suggested intense, fervent prayers as the answer to the problem of terrorism in the land.

Tuesday, October 24, 2023

Robbing The Poor To Pamper The Rich

 By Dan Onwukwe

Every passing day, reports about Nigeria and its political leaders, have become astonishingly revolting. It draws tears.  While the economy is on a cliffhanger, the rate of poverty in the country is frighteningly rising. With poor Nigerians facing extremely difficult times, and most parents  unable to afford to pay their children’s school fees, another class of Nigerians seem to be living in a completely different world, behaving like overfed, drunken sailors, living in denial, oblivious of the raging storms. And while the government has continued in its borrowing binge, cost of governance is soaring. It’s all about breathing down the necks of the poor to take care of the rich  at the expense of the already lean public treasury.

Never in my adult life have I seen  this class of freewheeling, impudent, profligate, reckless, selfish, self-serving  politicians to whom shame has become a passĂ©. To borrow the words of former minister,  Dr Oby Ezekwesili, who last week described our federal lawmakers as an ‘incorrigible bunch of lawbreakers who rigged themselves into office, and felt entitled to an indulgent life funded by the miserable public treasury’. The truth is, nobody who steals political power uses it to benefit people.  That’s the heart of Ezekwesili’s message. Moreover, if  corruption were a disqualifying offence, almost all politicians in Nigeria would be out of work, and perhaps half of them would have been in jail. But this is Nigeria. What a country! 

It raises pertinent questions: Who can save Nigeria from this desperate, selfish politicians? Is Nigeria jinxed on the leadership index? Why is our present class of politicians far worse than the previous ones? Is our leadership recruitment process to blame? Why is it that what works in other democracies don’t work in Nigeria? How did we come to this sorry state, where nothing works and our lawmakers have become more of freewheelers and rent-seekers than lawmakers.  For want of a fitting description, with little exception, most of our present politicians have become open sores to the country? Frankly, any of these questions you attempt to answer, leads inexorably to another, more troubling ones. Who did this to us? Is Nigeria cursed, or are we the cause?  We need some reminders, one of which  is that, nothing happens to a country that is not a reflection of the character and temperament of the politicians in that country.    

This is in line with the saying that every country is its own laboratory  of democracy. Look around:  It’s not hard to gauge the mood of Nigerians since Bola Tinubu was declared President by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on that unforgettable wee hours of Wednesday morning, March 1, 2023. Nigeria’s skylines have been painted in worst colours. They are colours of despair, pain, disillusionment and profound frustrations never seen since the present democratic dispensation, 24 years ago.  If you have observed closely, you possibly have noticed what could be called the emergence of blood -and- thunder politicians who believe only in “their way- or -the highway” kind of politics.      

These are a bunch of politicians, who are in politics purely for personal aggrandisement, to enrich themselves at public expense. They have  little tolerance for prudence, transparency and accountability. They have no real agenda other than to dominate other people. The pain of the poor has become their luxury. And you ask: Why do the worst set of people rise to power in some countries?  That was the question posed by Brian Paul Klass, a young American scientist and author of the Corruptible, and co-author of, How to Rig an Election. Look at the idiocy that is happening at both chambers of the National Assembly. Their riotous habits remain unchanged, even when the citizens they claim to represent groan under the terrible burden of hunger and misery unleashed by the Tinubu administration.     

The danger signal to the present reckless behaviour of the  federal lawmakers began so early after the inauguration of the 10th National Assembly. According to Business Day Report of June 27,  barely one week after Godswill  Akpabio was inaugurated as President of the Senate, his security aides were seen riding expensive, exotic power bikes as part of his convoy. All over Abuja, the convoys of politicians have become obscene spectacle in a country where over 133 million Nigerians are multidimensionality poor. 

Few days ago, the lid was blown open of the purchase of 360 Prado Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs)  for all the members of the House of Representatives at cost estimated at N57.6bn or  N130 million each. Some reports put the cost of each of the SUV at N160 million each. The House spokesperson,  Akin Rotimi tried to fool Nigerians when he said that the amount was a “bit exaggerated”. He admitted that the SUVs will be distributed to the legislators, but “not for personal use”. Did you hear that? 

That was a remarkably ineffectual job, a briefcase of excuses of rebutting a collosal waste of public money.  Fudging facts has never been in short supply with Nigerian politicians. Who says our politics and politicians are not a fun to follow? This is happening at a time when our universities, hospitals are grossly underfunded, and our roads have become deathtraps, insecurity still squeezing everybody to a corner, and organised labour asking for salary increase amid soaring cost of living as a result of rising inflation, unemployment and general decline in standard of living index. And government stonewalling to grant the request of workers.            

All of this is happening as the salaries and perks of political office holders are on the rise and constantly under review. As of 2018, Sen. Shehu Sani revealed that a senator was paid N13.5 million per month as salary, and N750,000 as ‘running cost’ every month. According to recent estimates, the 48 ministers appointed by President Tinubu will cost the country a hefty N8.6bn in four years as emoluments. This is coming when the Tinubu administration is set to borrow a fresh $1.5 billion from the World Bank to support the 2024 budget. Recall that the Debt Management Office DMO had cautioned against further borrowing. At this profligate rate, it’s too early to know whether there will be anything left in the treasury in the next four years. 

Right now, those who should know say that Nigeria’s financial balance sheet looks grim like a limited liability company under receivership. Bankruptcy is imminent. Why not, when over 96 percent of revenue is spent on debt servicing, yet our lawmakers are living a life of obscene revelry in a sinking Titanic. Never in recent memory has Nigeria drifted off so dangerously in every index of human measurements as it is now. The lose of confidence in government and politicians is at all-time high. It’s destroying the social, economic and political fabric of the country. The future is bleak, yet the political leadership is unperturbed.  

Make no mistakes about it: what the APC administration has made of Nigeria and Nigerians in the last 8 years(and counting), is unimaginable. It is like a virus that has infested all facets of our lives. As already said, it’s an open sore, an existential threat that strikes at the very heart and soul of our national will to coexist as one nation in diversity. The facts are there.  Whatever APC inherited from the PDP in 2015, it has virtually destroyed all. What Buhari made worse, Tinubu has made worst in just  five months as President. Take a few samplers: In 2015, the Naira exchanged at N200/$1. As of last weekend, it was N1,100/$.                                                

Our foreign reserves was $35.25bn in May, 2015, today, it is less than $23trn. National debt profile was N18.89trn in 2015, today, it is more than N87trn. In 2015, inflation rate was 13 percent, today it’s 26.7 percent, representing 18- year  high, according to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). A litre of fuel was N95 in 2015, today, it’s over  N630 depending on the location. A bag of 50kg of Rice was sold at N8,000, today, it’s over N48,000. The question is: Are you better off today than you were in 2015? 

This is what Robert Allan Caro, a renowned American journalist and author of many biographies of U.S. political figures wrote about the likes of Nigerian politicians: “What leaders do while they are trying to get power is not necessarily what they do after they have it”.                                           

It’s all about the complexity of ambition, and the delusional forgetfulness by some politicians that, in the end, power is transient. As Lord Acton said, ‘power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’. What does that tell us?  Certainly, there will be life after politics. Is what Tinubu doing now what he said when he was campaigning for the office of the President?  

Where is the “Renewed Hope” that he promised? Hope has given way to pessimism. Is he paying attention to the cry of Nigerians over worsening hunger in the land?  I have read Caro’s observation many times, and situating it to the context of Nigerian politicians, especially the ones strutting the political stage now, the message sinks in. One sad reality is that, to paraphrase Caro, without a vision beyond their own advancement, leaders are almost paralyzed once the goal of acquiring power has been achieved.   

*Onwukwe is a commentator on public issues    

 

Wednesday, May 10, 2023

Why Do The Worst People Rise To Power?

 By Dan Onwukwe

First, a confession: The above headline is not original to me. It’s that of a young American political scientist, Brian Paul Klass. Brian is a contributing editor at The Atlantic, America’s flagship monthly magazine. He is the author of Corruptible: Who Gets Power and how it Changes Us. He’s the co-author of How to Rig an Election.  His research interests include: Authoritarianism , Democracy, US politics, Political violence, and more.

Lessons in power will continue to elicit intellectual conversation. It’s not for nothing. It’s so because what leaders do while they are trying to get power is not necessarily, to borrow the words of historian Robert A. Caro, “what they do after they have it”. It’s, therefore, not unkind to say that it has been the misfortune of Nigeria to watch worse people rise to power and use that power to bend people to their will and impoverish the citizens.