We are into interesting times! Another election season is around the corner. The fear of losing an election or re-election has a way of moderating the actions of incumbents and party flagbearers. They struggle to appear people-friendly. Sometimes they eat corn on the streets. At another time, they openly drink sachets of water (commonly called pure water) with the commoners. They sometimes pretentiously come of out of their thick-skinned cocoon. But Nigerians are wiser. The people cannot be fool
We are into interesting times! Another election season is around the corner. The fear of losing an election or re-election has a way of moderating the actions of incumbents and party flagbearers. They struggle to appear people-friendly. Sometimes they eat corn on the streets. At another time, they openly drink sachets of water (commonly called pure water) with the commoners. They sometimes pretentiously come of out of their thick-skinned cocoon. But Nigerians are wiser. The people cannot be fooled all the time. They have known the antics of the political elites. They are fed up with their reactionary quick-fixes and palliatives. Hunger, deprivations, dignified deceit, and massive-scale thievery have unified the people. There is a growing unanimous resolve to confront the arrogance of power through the ballot box.
Indeed, the major issue to dominate political campaigns would be whether the uncritical, buffer-less, and off-the-cuff withdrawal of subsidy regime in the premium motor spirit (PMS) has benefited majority of the citizens. Has the standard of living of most Nigerians improved? How many people have been lifted out of poverty? Is there impactful social investment targeting vulnerable persons? How did the SMEs fare in the last three years? What about the power sector? What can we say about quality healthcare and good education? Can we say that more strategic roads have been built or rebuilt? What about rail transportation? Are Nigerians feeling more secured? What about agriculture and food security? These are the challenges that daily bare their fangs against the ordinary people, and if the performance evaluation dashboard indicates red light on these touchy issues, then the touted gains of subsidy removal is questionable.
Over the years, a successive cartel of oil thieves and their accomplices in government held the nation by the jugular and bled the country dry through a monumental sleaze in subsidy payments. To that end, the country inadvertently produced overnight oil billionaires without verifiable production base in the economy. “The story of Nigeria’s oil and gas sector is ugly. Although revenues from the sector have, to a substantial extent, helped finance the country’s development, the impact of the sector has fallen far short of expectations because of inappropriate policies, inefficient and non-transparent institutions, corruption, capture by leaders, and rent seeking internal and external elites. This makes the sector a minefield for anyone seeking transparency, accountability for revenue flows, or simply the honest and straightforward conduct of government business,” stated Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s former finance minister, in her book, Fighting Corruption is Dangerous.
Before 2023, all attempts to remove the subsidy were stoutly resisted by the masses, civil society, organized labour, and a section of the political elites in the then opposition. Today, it is a sarcastic twist that those who called former president Goodluck Jonathan “clueless” and “kindergarten” president have become the new advocates of subsidy removal even when the unprecedented resources in the coffers of the three tiers of government have scarcely improved the material conditions of over 75% of Nigerians.
And in what looks like a last-ditch firefighting, President Tinubu lately called on 36 states governors to roll out more CNG buses and electric vehicles to cushion the harsh effects of the unending hike in transportation fares and the attendant high cost of goods and services. But it is becoming too late in the day. In the last three years, the ruling APC had dismissed every call for addressing the widespread hardship in the country as partisanship and the voice of the opposition. However, if it takes the shot fired by Atiku Abubakar, ADC presidential candidate, to awaken Tinubu from the deep slumber of Aso Villa comfort, then the opposition should throw more suffocating punches on the present administration. Unfortunately, their retreats, caucus meetings, and the national convention failed to apprise Mr. President of the smouldering tension and flak of mass anger in the country. Instead, they turned out a rehash of what Mr. President wants to hear.
Come to think of it, one can safely assume that the only elixir for President Tinubu to act and remember his social contract of security and welfare of the people is anytime his stay in office is threatened. It took the fiery tweet from the US President Donald Trump for him to sit up on security tending, and now that it does appear that Trump has been softened through various lobbying techniques, the merchants of violence have returned to their duty posts. Second, Atiku’s dress rehearsal and testing of firing shots have reportedly given the Villa sleepless nights. Make no mistake, this is Atiku’s last chance and he will spare no effort in puncturing the ubiquitous balloon of scandals in this government. After all, an African proverb holds it that, “Stealing the village drum is easy but finding a place to beat it peacefully is the problem.”
The recent declaration by Governor Hope Uzodinma of Imo State that APC Governors would deliver Tinubu in their States is panicky. Deep inside, they know that there is fire on the mountain. Those who swallowed the freed-up resources through white elephant projects and high cost of governance, and left the people in penury, have mass anger to contend with.
My free advice to Tinubu is that he should not think that the rise of Nigeria’s external reserves to $53.11 billion, the highest in 17 years, which is a comfortable buffer to the country’s economy, would save his decapitated image. He should not trust the governors absolutely. They may not stand the heat when the chips are down. They buckled under a groundswell of opposition after persuading Jonathan to remove subsidy on January 1, 2012. They left him in the lurch.
Nigerians urgently need policy measures to grapple with the galloping inflation – high cost of food, rent, transport, medicare, children’s school fees, as well as low purchasing power even with increment in salaries. That is how to feel the gains of subsidy removal. Why is federal government still borrowing excessively? Why are some Governors aggressively taxing a distraught citizenry? Many questions!
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