Editorial
Is N39billion to renovate ICC built with N240milllion not criminal?
Where is the subsidy money? This was the question Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), in the February 23, 2023 election, posed to his host during an outing on The Morning Show, the breakfast programme on ARISE NEWS, Nigeria’s television network.
It was a question to underscore the promise President Bola Tinubu made when he told Nigerians that he would be deploying the proceeds from the removal of subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), otherwise known as petrol to engage in massive development of infrastructure across the country.
The idea behind the thinking as contained in the reform structure signposting his Renewed Hope Agenda, is not only to cushion the immediate impact of the policy on the polity, but to evoke a quantum leap in the economy of the country. Of course, not a few have hailed the move as a bold step that underscored the President’s courage to dare to step into a forbidden ground where his predecessors feared.
But if any impact has been cushioned or the economy has been jumpstarted, two years on, it is in the imagination of the leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Tinubu’s immediate cabinet, appointees, the hundreds of his appointees he has given jobs and of course state governors and members of the legislature, who are either themselves swimming in the deep ocean of unimaginable quantum of raw cash now suffusing the coffers of their individual states or are too scared of the now ubiquitous “Hurricane” the government of the day has created around itself to make as much as a whimper of protest.
The rest of Nigerians not only see differently, but feel differently, having been at the receiving end from the moment Tinubu pronounced those three-letter words on May 29, 2023 at the podium of Eagle Square, Abuja, shortly after taking the oath of office to commence official duties as Nigeria’s 16th President – subsidy is gone! To further deepen the ugly situation, the President also, followed up with the floating of the national currency, plummeting the value from N400 to N1,700 to a dollar.
Here is how the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the main mouthpiece of organised labour in Nigeria attempted to capture the situation: “Instead of reinvestment, Nigerians got inflation so vicious that families now skip meals, businesses shut down daily, and transport costs consume what little remains of workers’ wages. The naira, left to the so-called ‘market forces,’ has collapsed in value, turning Nigeria into a bargain basement for neighbouring countries, while local industries suffocate under the weight of imported inflation.
“What makes this pain even more frustrating is that none of it is new. We’ve seen this script before – subsidy removals, devaluations, and IMF-approved austerity – each time sold as the bitter pill Nigeria must swallow for a brighter future. But when has it ever worked? These same policies under past administrations only widened inequality, enriched a few, and left the majority poorer. Tinubu’s version is no different – except the suffering is deeper, the anger louder, and the government’s response more brutal.”
But the wackiest part of the sad story is not captured in the massive pain the labour body captured or the oft-sung mantra of the President, luxuriating in in obvious wealth and making no bones about it urging Nigerians to be patient and give him time for the benefits to mature, which in itself instead of suggesting a genuine appeal, appears more of an insult and mockery.
No! It is not even much more in the fact that the President himself and those at the corridors of power are engaging in the level of obscene revelling never seen before of public officials in Nigeria – buying up everything under the sun – spending cash like drunken sailors – or competing in opulence that mimics Arabian kings or medieval monarchs.
No! It is in the impunity – the utterly licentious – let the heavens fall attitude of it all, as captured in the cost of the projects being showcased in the so-called infrastructure gulping the Nigerian commonwealth in question and the inability of Nigerians not even make a whimper of protest. That is what rankles – like pouring vinegar to a festering sore.
Apart from Tinubu himself, nobody seems as culpable in this regard as Nyesom Wike, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Those who name him the alternate President of Nigeria, may not be far off the mark, because in everything, the former Governor of Rivers State appears to copy Tinubu. The President is reputed to parade one of the longest convoys of cars in the world. Wike’s convoy is merely a few cars short. Tinubu bought a Cadillac Beast, Wike now appears at functions in latest Rolls Royce.
On Tuesday, Wike gathered the world to launch the newly-renovated International Conference Centre (ICC), now named the Bola Ahmed Tinubu International Conference Centre (BATICC) Abuja, at the cost of – wait for it N39billion. Everybody, including the President was there to celebrate. It is of course, one of the wonders Wike, the poster-boy of the Tinubu administration is doing in the FCT.
But as the backslapping and chest-beating were going on, it was obvious that nobody bothered to ask the basic question – what was the N39billion for? What could have been put in that structure to gulp such an amount? How much would a brand-new structure have cost? This was a structure that the military government of Military President Ibrahim Babangida built in 1991 at the projected cost of N240million, from the scratch. Granted that the Naira is almost valueless. But has become so worthless that the renovation of a mere building would cost that much?
That missing question is what we are asking today. Has Nyesom Wike been given a blank cheque? What level of financial scrutiny goes into these projects or is he immune from such assessment? Only on Monday, May 6, 2025, Tinubu presented a whopping ₦1.78 trillion proposal to the National Assembly as the FCT budget for the year. This was after the approvals of other humongous amounts for the same entity.
We raise this issue because we believe it must go pari-passu with the celebration of the Minister as the poster-boy of the Tinubu administration for which he has earned the sobriquet – Mr. Projects – and an award to go with it from no lesser influential organisation than ARISE NEWS, Nigeria’s frontline television station.
While it is apposite to join other numerous Nigerians to pop the bottles and roll out the drums in celebration, the greater duty is to ask, how much of the mind-boggling financial accruals from the federal purse and the also huge internally-generated funds from Abuja, goes into actual project and how much goes into maintaining imperial lifestyle associated to him, including those highly dollarised apparels such as he spotted on Monday and fancy cars.
If renovating the residence of the Vice President at N21billion, parading state of the art cars in a convoy, driving to a function in the latest edition of Rolls Royce and renovating the ICC or now BATICC, originally built at N240million only 34 years ago at N39billion, is not criminal, we wonder what else qualifies. We won’t keep quiet!
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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