Editorial
Nigeria in distress: Why blame Tinubu?
Did Bola Tinubu at anytime during the pendency of his quest or the campaigns for the 2023 presidential election project himself as possessing the capacity to run Nigeria? If yes, at what point? Was it at the campaign grounds that were suffused at each point with some melodramas that at the best presented the audience and Nigerians in general with some comic reliefs and at the worst, foretold the impending doom his possible presidency could conduce?
Was it at the townhall meeting in Owerri, Imo State, where he created that Bala-blu, bulaba, wacky musical conjunction that became a kind of national mantra even children participated in mimicking? Could it be in Port Harcourt, where at the singing of the National Anthem, he raised his walking stick like Professor Pella before his magical acts?
Was it in Bauchi or Kano where he only danced to music or in Ogun, where he told the people so re-assuredly that he would win, come rain, come shine? Where indeed did Tinubu present himself in any manner capable of promoting some confidence that in him, Nigeria could have a breather from the cataclysmic eruption of pure violence across the country at that time that left the people sleeping with both eyes open?
Where did he demonstrate the littlest understanding of the monstrous economic crisis that had at that time plunged the country into the bottomless pit of hopelessness and millions of hitherto thriving citizens into the nadir of fiscal penury, poverty and want that signposted the entire disastrous eight years of former President Muhammadu Buhari, let alone have a solution for the situation?
Was it in practically mocking Nigerians by scoffing at the various presidential debates where candidates were supposed to not only personally own the manifestos that could have been written for them by some experts in the cozy rooms in their consulting offices, but project them with clarity of thoughts and understanding as his opponents strove to? Was it at the Chatham House, where he farmed out virtually all the direct questions he was meant to answer to his retinue of hangers-on that are now mostly in charge of the country?
So, why then blame him for the situation where Nigeria is today, galloping from the critical state of the Buhari years to the fatal – endgame period the country is now witnessing with one dollar exchanging in the last hour at above N1,500? Nemo dat quod non habet, the Latin word for “no one can give what they do not have,” is the simple explanation for the systematic bastardisation of Nigeria today.
Just like Buhari, who ought not pass beyond a local chief or at best Emir of Daura, but pitiably became President of Nigeria and as a result inflicted it with the multifaceted disease in the polity today, Tinubu simply does not have what it takes to pull the country out of the woods. Indeed, the current experience is just the beginning because there are more and would be more, where the present suffering in the land is domiciled.
It would be a good bet to suggest that Tinubu himself knows that he has no solution, assuming he has any desire to do good with the powers he now has. Else, how could he choose this period as the best time to jet out of the country on a “private visit” to France? Who does that? Not even the infamous Idi Amin Dada of Uganda, with all the gory story around him nor Emperor Jean-Bedel Bokassa of the Central African Republic (CAR) said to use human flesh as desert after dinner or even their Nigerian equivalent, Sani Abacha, could have been more insensitive.
Of course, nobody with close eyes on the situation of Lagos in the last two decades is likely to entertain any iota of doubt at the odious fate sure to beset Nigeria in the next eight years that Tinubu is likely to remain in office. It is a period Nigerians are likely to eat each other for food, because by the time the hands of the clock turn, only those in the corridors of power and those associated with them, would likely find or afford real food.
Ostensibly, Tinubu’s disastrous outing in the state in the last presidential election, in spite his vice grip on its levers of power in the last 24 years, underscores the fact that Nigerians are not daft, especially those in Lagos, regardless the attempt by some to infer otherwise. Nigerians know the reason the only response those in charge of the state has right now is to resort to the pure intimidation of bulldozing the houses of some residents to whip them into line. It is simply meant to divert attention from the reality.
Yes! As Nigerians were no daft in Lagos, so, they were not anywhere nationwide. Not in Abuja, not in Borno, not in Kano or Kaduna, not in Benue, Oyo, Edo, Akwa-Ibom or Enugu and certainly not in all the military formations in Nigeria, where election bandits had no access.
It takes only an imbecile or demons sworn to mortal attack on the Nigerian nationhood who are prancing about today, enjoying every bit of the horrible situation of the country, to say that they do not know the true winner of the 2023 presidential election, an event which is the beginning and end of the present state of the nation.
Yes! If indeed the true winner of that election had been allowed to emerge and the New Nigeria, citizens had hoped to create by the momentum they generated, there is no telling the fact that the situation would have been different. If anything, there would have been some direct and manifest steps to mitigate it if not totally reverse it. But what did you have? That effort was killed. The plant was attacked at its roots by vested interests before it could bear the desired fruit.
So, instead of blaming Tinubu, blame the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for that “Technical Glitches,” that ensured that INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) was shut down on the day of the presidential election. But more than that, blame the judiciary – those judges at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) and their senior brothers at the Supreme Court.
Yes! If INEC under Yakubu Mahmood, had been as forthright as that of National Electoral Commission (NEC) in Ghana led by Kwado Afary-Gyan that refused to declare Nana Akufo Addo, President in 2008, who won at the first balloting but missed the benchmark for outright win by a tiny fraction, Nigeria would not be where it is today.
On the other hand if the courts had put a stop to the institutional heist that underscored the 2023 elections, as they did elsewhere, including Kenya where David Maraga, the Chief Justice, cancelled a presidential poll “because it was not conducted in accordance with the constitution,” and ordered a repeat, it would have, apart from resetting the brains of the election managers, sent a clear message on vital democratic ethos and the need to do the right thing.
Was it not surprising that Tinubu never showed any iota of doubt about winning the last election in spite of his obvious shortcomings? What gave him that confidence? Whatever aided him to do so, is where the focus of Nigerians should be right now, not on him as a person.
That is the exactly the reason he would be striding about in the lush garden or rolling gingerly in his posh sofa, remote control in hand and sipping the best of French wines, in his current abode in Paris, while Nigeria practically burns.
At the last count, 2,423 Nigerians are said to have been killed while 1,872, were kidnapped in the last eight months Tinubu has been in power. Of course, this is conservative from the actual picture, because many of the cases are unreported. Yet, even as this is enough to bring down any government, the latest engagement of the President is to appear in photo-ups with Daniel Bwala, former spokesman of Atiku Abubakar, his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) opponent in the last election. It must have been such a big catch worthy of celebration. Now with that as the main priority, you could be sure what the picture would look like in the next eight years by the time he is done.
But even if that Armageddon comes and half of Nigeria is wiped out by bandits and more are kept in the bush by kidnappers, even if Naira, which today stands at N1,500 to a dollar, exchanges for N10,000 to a dollar in the next eight years, which is not unlikely and most citizens exhaust all the rats and lizards likely to be the only remaining source of meat they could afford, Tinubu will still win the next election.
No one needs look far for the reason. As long as the vested interests, whose only desire is to maintain a status quo where a large chunk of the proceeds from oil production in the Niger Delta ends in private pockets or create a situation in Plateau and Zamfara where locals are sacked from their ancestral land for illegal miners to take over or enable gun manufacturers abroad keep their factories booming by creating conflicts and human carnage in Borno, Katsina, Imo, Benue and other theatres of bloody conflicts, are in control, the story will remain the same.
INEC will do the needful in the next election. The courts will sanction it, the international community, will play their complicit role in hailing it, just as they hailed the last election and are presently hailing the current economic gymnastics that have led to the soaring crisis in the county as the best step.
To boot, there will be many Bayo Onanugas to tackle any Atiku or Peter Obi that may have the temerity to challenge the ugly situation as sour losers of election still nursing the wounds of their defeat, while Nigeria will ultimately continue in the circle of doom.
Make no mistake about it, these vested interests were there before Tinubu and they will be there after him and unless by divine miracle something positive happens to change the trajectory, they will be there long after the bones of the current players become dust. So, instead of wasting time blaming Tinubu, the focus should be to look for that divine miracle. Else, the tragedy continues!
It began less than 10 minutes after taking the oath of office. In his address to the nation, he uttered those three-letter words – subsidy is gone. The ink with which he signed the documents declaring him President was yet to dry.
That was it. From that moment, Nigerians have known nothing but poverty, tears and death. It was a declaration that came out of impulse rather than articulacy. It was not even contained in his original speech prepared for the occasion. But it sprouted out – from a rash, unthinking and impetuous mental construct.
But the effect was instant, the impact direct. From that moment, Nigerians have never known peace. Every thing took a cue. Minutes after, the news broke that the price of Premium Motor Spirit, otherwise known as petrol had jumped from N189 to N550. It was that instant. Today, it hovers around N1,500.
The effect: Within minutes, transportation cost quadrupled. So too, commodity prices. Caught unawares, marketers, who had earlier thought it was a day of the rains as customers rushed to their shops, soon became suspicious and then got wiser – these were not ordinary customers but smart alecs playing a fast one on them.
They stopped selling, retrieved the items they could from those who had not disappeared with their goods and closed shop to study the situation properly. Hours after, they responded. A plate of eba and soup, went up from N200 to N1,000. Prices hit the rooftops.
In fact, the vehicle transporting what used to be Nigeria, which had been moving at a horse and buggy pace in the days of Muhammadu Buhari, stopped abruptly, engaged the reverse gear and began galloping backwards. That has remained the ugly, parlous tale of the Tinubu days, since May 29, 2023.
Now, the expectation would be that the President and his government that wrought such a horrendous punishment on the polity, would themselves take some blows. But nada! Instead, the opposite was the case. Within months of plunging the citizens into the untold hardship Tinubu went on a binge, spending money – in the words of Olusegun Obasanjo, former President – like a drunken sailor.
Few weeks after, as Nigerians were reeling and gasping in pain from the impact of their new situation, 469 newly-minted Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs), rolled out from factories in Japan, where they were produced into the premises of the National Assembly for the just inaugurated members.
Put the cost at N100billion – that is N160million for each unit, plus other charges. Reason: The lawmakers needed the vehicles because of their good suspension system, to navigate the so many bad roads in Nigeria. Yes, you heard right. How could they think well and make good laws after the hassles of the bad roads? Tinubu saw reasons, acquiesced and voila!
But it did not end there. Tinubu suddenly realised that Kashim Shettima, his deputy, needed a new home “befitting” his new office. Pronto! A voucher of N21billion was raised and he had it. Till date a haze still hovers over the project.
The last news that was heard was that Number Two refused to take residence because the entire environment, including the toilets was wired to the teeth to monitor him. And Number Two needed privacy.
Again, in the same weeks, Oga Patapata, also realised that Madam needed to transport more comfortably. Pronto! It was arranged. Another voucher was raised for cars for the Office of the First Lady. Cost N1.2billion. Of course, madam needed the comfort for peace at home.
Naturally, since transportation is not done by land alone, he also took care of that. For the sea, a yacht was procured. Cost N5billion. Because the birds in the presidential fleet were not good enough, Tinubu did the needful.
He enriched the fleet with the one befitting of his status and had it transformed to mimic the US Air Force One. To complete the status symbol project, he also added a replica of The Beast, the US presidential automobile.
Ironically, the funds used in procuring these luxury lifestyle, came, not out of productive ventures of Nigeria, but through borrowing. Today, Tinubu has practically borrowed Nigeria blind, doubling or even tripling that of his predecessors.
Meanwhile Nigerians had upped the ante from mere groaning and skreiching. Citizens, unable to take it anymore, now stop their hitherto sleek vehicles on the Third Mainland Bridge and plunge into the Lagos lagoon to end it all. The option is now more rampant than remote and occasional.
Many others, taking the Socrates option, now drink hemlock and many more simply sleep off without any intention of waking up. That is where we are. That is the new Nigeria – the Tinubu Nigeria. But there is more.
Terrorists and the landlords of the forest, having now discovered that the Commander-in-Chief has other fancies than security and welfare of the people – the constitutionally-declared primary purpose of government and scant regard for the citizens, have practically gone haywire. They have taken over and established their authority.
Presently, outside those wantonly slaughtered or butchered in their homes like animals at the abattoir, incinerated alive while sleeping on their beds, among other forms of decimation, many more citizens are now spending months, going to years as victims of captivity with them in various forests in Nigeria.
In their rampage, the terrorists have since broken all barriers considered out of place hitherto. One of their escapades is the present videos of the school children and teachers taken from Oyo State. The gory imagery captures the current Nigerian story.
For instance, on Thursday, just as the sound of heavy celebration was going on in neighbouring Ogun State as the world marked the Ojude Oba yearly carnival, two of the victims, one of them with a toddler on her back, were pleading for their lives, as others went through various forms of torture, including heavy whipping like beasts.
Don’t forget that the terrorists had earlier slaughtered one of their colleagues. In the new video, the totally terrified women, informed that they had chosen another victim to be similarly eliminated. Yet, no word about rescue! Terrible!
Interestingly, if not painfully, Tinubu’s response, in the few cases he bothered, was to see the crisis through the politics lens. His most recent reaction was to tell the world that the harvest of attacks and carnages ravaging the country, were sponsored by his political enemies, intent on shoving him out of power. That to him was all that mattered.
Now, where are your powers as C-in-C? They are mostly found in the most disgraceful economic and political acts of impunity. Nigerians now waking up to hear of the award of brain-dazing contracts such as the N15trillion Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and Badagry-Maiduguri Highway – with scant regard for official regulations, is now becoming more common than rare.
Few days after one of the teachers was beheaded and the video of the hideous act made to circulate on the social media, the President and his All Progressives Congress (APC), party, rolled out the drums of his winning the party’s ticket to contest the 2027 presidential election.
To say that it has been three years of weeping, wailing, mourning and gnashing of the teeth, is a clear euphemism. There is no starker way of putting it than calamity – pure, unmitigated catastrophe – disaster.
Then comes the big question. Nigeria is already breasting the tape of these ruinous years of the first term. Suppose Tinubu succeeds in renewing his tenure by January next year? Will Nigeria survive five more years of a life like the last three? What will be left of Nigeria? Is there a way out, outside shouting – God forbid!?
Now that Nyesom Wike, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has fully executed his plot against Siminalayi Fubara, Governor of Rivers State, where would it be placed in terms of identity, nuances, ethos and history? Where would it be placed in democratic arrangement and value? In other word, by what name would it be called?
So, this is what President Bola Tinubu’s much-advertised democratic credentials is all about? This is what being listed among the arrowheads in the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), the body that fought relentlessly against the late Sani Abacha and his henchmen has finally come to?
Is this where “The Last Man Standing” – apologies Tony Elumelu – has ended up? So, after wedging an epic battle for and through Lagos State, against then President Obasanjo and practically defeating him, even if perceptibly, in all the struggles – such as running government without federal allocation for years and surviving the political onslaught that took away other South West states like a tsunami, it has come to this?
Don’t forget that it was this selfsame Tinubu that served as the bastion of opposition in Nigerian politics from when he was Governor of Lagos State, not only standing up against Obasanjo, but undertaking the relentless battles that led to the All Progressives Congress (APC), winning the war eventually in 2015.
So, this is what all the struggles, the speeches, the colloquia, the meetings and the strategies have come to – the end result? So, the definition of democracy, to Tinubu, is selling the dog to buy a monkey – replacing democratic bad-behaviour with democratic-heist? So, this is it?!
Make no mistake about it. What you saw play out in Rivers is nothing but Tinubu at work. It is all about him, it is for him. Never make the mistake of adorning Wike in the toga of a powerful man. That would be a fatal error of judgement. Every power he exercises, real, imagined, inferred or contingent belong to and are exclusive to Tinubu.
Take away the President and Wike would turn to a political meek-lamb or a jellyfish. Fubara would have eaten him for lunch a long time ago. So, Tinubu it is – the reason the klieglights must be beamed on him. That is why he must carry the can in this odious construct in Rivers in particular and the entire Nigerian political scenario in general.
With the picture that assaulted Nigeria regarding the APC primaries that have just held, what is different from the edition we saw in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of old? Is it not worse or the worst in real and imagined terms? What then has Tinubu been fighting all these years?
Incidentally, where we have Wike today, we had Lamidi Adedibu, the Amala Politics exponent, Tony Aneni of the Mr. Fix-it fame and the Uba brothers in Anambra to whom the political firmament in Nigeria once bowed, among many plethora of examples.
So, there is nothing really new about the development, but for the fresh dimension that has been introduced into the narrative by the Wike phenomenon, which is totally novel. Before now it was a case of one behemoth in a political party rampaging the system.
But today, it has gone beyond that. Wike has developed the penchant for taking no prisoners. In his own strange construct, he has now coalesced the entire APC and PDP structure into his shoulder basket, from where he dispenses favours.
Imagine Kingsley Chinda, purchasing APC governorship election form, as a PDP federal lawmaker without first resigning from his original party. That is how wacky it has become. Wackier still is that nobody – not even the APC apparatchik has been able to raise a finger. Why? Obvious answer – the Tinubu factor.
Now, here is the danger. By the heist in Port Harcourt adding to the sequence of political oddities and absurdities since the Tinubu years, it has become obvious that Nigeria is headed towards a Paul Biya’s Cameroun, a Yoweri Musaveni’s Uganda and Zimbabwe under the late Robert Mugabe.
Tinubu, has shown obvious incapacity to tackle the parlous economic crisis in the country with 150 million Nigerians plunged into multidimensional poverty and many more growing the list daily, while also displaying uncommon powerlessness towards addressing the debilitating state of insecurity.
Under his nose citizens are daily being forced from their homes into the forests by terrorists, with some of them taken from their crutching positions, positioned before the camera and slaughtered – heads cut off like animals at an abattoir and video images freely displayed on social media.
Yet, by what has now happened in Rivers State, it has become obvious that Nigerians are not being factored into the whole equation and if they were, scant regard is paid to their opinion, ending in their powerlessness to change the situation. That is the tragedy!
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