Editorial
NASS must reject Tinubu’s N34.15trillion loan, it’s death sentence!
When in 2021, Peter Obi called attention to the indiscriminate borrowings of Muhammadu Buhari, the President of Nigeria, the reaction was instant as it was virulent. The former Governor of Anambra State, had pointed out to the President that his penchant for grabbing money from foreign and domestic lending institutions, was not only a bad behaviour, but completely dangerous to national health, because it was akin to mortgaging the future of the country and putting the children of the next generations in harm’s way.
Naturally, the quick riposte from Buhari and his men, was that Obi was jealous of the administration and the giant strides it was making and that his intervention was dangerous to the general health and wellbeing of Nigeria. In other words, he was effectively declared the nation’s number one enemy. In fact the noxious attacks against the former governor could have been likened to the venoms from the desert puff adder, a rock scorpion and the Amazon spider put together – more lethal than the poisonous gas that escaped from the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine.
But because truth was itself a buffer and the most potent antidote to such mortal poison, the barrage of attacks constituted little effect on him. Intriguingly, Obi’s, like that of John The Baptist in the wilderness calling for repentance to the Jews, was a lone voice calling attention of Nigerians to the danger ahead at a time many others including the so-called Nigeria’s celebrated economists, decided to switch to the silent mode.
From Lai Mohammed, the official spokesman of the government to the duos of Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu, the President’s spokesmen to the goons at the APC, and many more of their supporters at the Brantyre Wuse Secretariat, the remit, was to make a mincemeat of Obi and cast him as enemy of progress, as they echoed the oft-sung mantra of their principal – we’re building infrastructure.
Today, where are the infrastructure that administration claimed they were sinking the billions of dollars they were borrowing from left, right and centre? The Port Harcourt Refinery, has become the perfect metaphor for the idea of resuscitating the nation’s four refineries. The railway project, another drainpipe of that administration remains comatose, confirming Obi’s fears whenever he asks – where are the infrastructures?
Of course, in connivance with their collaborators abroad, who for a clearly diabolical purpose, have ensured that these loans keep coming continuously, aware of the mindset of the recipients is not only the voracious appetite for lavish spending, undiluted corruption and the penchant to return the money to their banks, had to rig the 2023 election to ensure that Obi never came close to office to stop the stream of continuous sleaze.
So, what did the world see? With the first set of loans, President Bola Tinubu, like Buhari, went on a binge of spending, buying everything in sight. He suddenly remembered that the nation needed a N5billion yacht and that the Vice President needed a new lodge and gifted N21billion. Then, there was the need for a new Presidential jet to put him at par with his United States counterpart or the King of Saudi Arabia, who are Nigeria’s contemporaries.
Then, there was the home front to be taken care of. For that, some N2billion was devoted for the cars to ensure that the First Lady luxuriated around in optimum pleasure devoid of the impact of road craters. To ensure that the largesse went round, about 500 mint super-comfort, freshly-minted Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs), were ordered from the automobile factories of Japan for members of the National Assembly.
Since then and two years on, the story has remained the same – streams of borrowings that seem to go into nothing outside pampering the palates of people in the corridors of power with Nigerians, whose children and grandchildren are supposed to repay the debts, left in the lurch, while their fortunes continue to plummet such that majority of Nigerian families now go to bed hungry.
But the scary part has just arrived the scene. Like the python that goes for bigger preys as it increases in size, Tinubu has gone for the kill! Last Tuesday, he notified Nigerians of his intention to borrow a whopping N34.15 trillion.
Naturally, he port at his usual arena – NASS, his pliable ally in the entire macabre dance. In a letter to lawmakers at the Senate and House of Representatives, he sought approval for a new external borrowing plan of over $21.5 billion, which translates to N33.39 trillion at the official exchange rate of N1,590 per dollar as well as domestic bond issuance of N757.9 billion to settle outstanding pension liabilities.
Hear him: “The 2025–2026 borrowing plan covers all sectors, with specific emphasis on infrastructure, agriculture, health, education, water supply, growth, security, and employment generation, as well as financial and monetary reforms, among others.” Now, does this not sound familiar? Was this not the same mantra Buhari sang throughout his tenure that got Nigerian into this deep morass?
We must warn from the outset that this loan is a death sentence that must not be touched with a long stick. We say so because nothing in the borrowing of the last two years indicates that Tinubu is going to deploy the proceeds to the needed areas. Nothing suggests so. Recently, Babachir Lawal, former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), claimed that previous loans were shared before the got to Nigeria. Unfortunately, this is the dominant public position.
It is not surprising that the NASS appears in a haste to hit its rubberstamp on the proposal as usual. In both chambers, the matter was referred to committees dealing with the subject, with a mandate to report back in two weeks. That again bears a familiar tone. But before the gavel sounds to approve the request, the lawmakers must call the President to give a clear and comprehensive account of what he did with all the previous loans they approved for him.
The answers to this must be the cogent, verifiable and justifiable reasons for the approval or rejection of the proposal. They must also call the President to question on where the money from the removal of subsidy on petrol has also gone. Nigerians were told that the reason for the move which Tinubu announced minutes after his inauguration on May 29, 2023, for which they have been experiencing the level of deprivation, poverty and pain nobody ever thought was possible, was because funds needed to be freed to pursue massive infrastructure development in the country.
Where are those infrastructures? Has anything been added to the rail infrastructure project Buhari left behind? Have Nigerian roads become smooth and clean that NASS members no longer need SUVs to navigate them? Have Nigerian hospitals and other federal institutions acquired the needed state of the art equipment that ensures that medical tourism will be reduced and made a choice and no longer a necessity?
If these are not evident, then the proper step to take at the moment is to ask Tinubu, where is our money? This question will not be answered by pointing at the four kilometres they have done on the Lagos – Calabar super highway or the students loan initiative that is currently reeking of accusations of massive corruption. It is not about the conditional cash transfer and other claims, which Nigerians see as more audio than real. These claims are too scanty and far in-between!
We are not taking this position because we are not aware of the propensity for Tinubu to muscle his way or because we are numb to a NASS that seems sworn to live fully by its tag of rubberstamp legislature. No, we want to put it on record that we did not keep mute when things are going south. Like Peter Obi was on record for shouting when Buhari embarked on his own binge, we must shout and put it on record that this loan is another reckless attempt by Tinubu that he has completely captured Nigeria.
Let it be known that we do not support this new loan, which only result is to plunge Nigeria further into excruciating pain and unlivable condition. It is bad for the health of the nation, both now and in future and must be rejected. NASS, reject this loan request. We need not say more!
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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