Yours sincerely listened to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s national broadcast on Sunday morning from the beginning. And when he ended, my feeling was that the president had not finished talking. He needed to say more to millions of Nigerians glued to their sets that early morning, ignoring their regular church service and expectant that their commander-in-chief was about to apply a soothing balm to their troubled nerves.
On a disappointing note, the nation’s Number One citizen said nothing to douse the current tension in the country today. The president gave the impression that he was only pushed to talk to a group of petulant youths that have no reason to be angry with the administration, no purpose altogether to hit the streets in protest. The haughtiness, no matter how much the speechwriter tried to veil it, was palpable.
All the niceties of “I feel your pain” and calls for dialogue came not from the president’s heart but were merely inserted in the speech as formalities. How would one believe the president on that, when he remained unrepentant over spending N21 billion on the official residence of the vice president amid all the hardship being experienced by the people?
Nigerians listened to their president talk about feeling their pain, a president that budgeted N5.09 billion for his Presidential yacht while also mapping out N2.9 billion for replacement of operational vehicles for the presidency.
Nigerians knew that the unconstitutional office of the First Lady was to consume a whooping N1.5 billion at a time they found it difficult to buy one cup of their staple food, the “granulated tapioca extract” otherwise known as garri.
Painfully, the profligacy had not been restricted to the Presidency but had extended to the National Assembly which spent more than N75 billion on procuring official vehicles for themselves. This is apart from the huge salaries and allowances they have been collecting, including the absurdity of their being paid hardship allowance. Who is in hardship, the people or the politicians? The same National Assembly turned down the request of two reps who wanted their vehicles monetized so that they could use the money to better the lives of members of their constituency.
The upper chamber, the Senate, months before, ridiculed the poor when one of their own moved a motion that the government should let the poor breathe. In fact, the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, did not hide his disregard for the Nigerian masses, which he expressed in a derisive laughter as he let the gavel descend in passing the motion. Akpabio also, at the wake of the protests, taunted the youths to “go and protest, we’ll be at home eating.”
The build-up for the protest had begun way back, when this administration hit the ground running on extravagance even after telling the nation that it inherited an empty treasury. The mindboggling opulence exhibited by those in government could not match the president’s claims that his administration was one that cared so much about ameliorating the excruciating hardship experienced in all aspects of life by the citizens in their country. Transport fares have gone up astronomically, triggering inflation and food crisis. Education became out of reach. Businesses folded up, sending more persons into the already saturated job market.
Ever since the president announced the removal of fuel subsidy, prices have remained erratic to the point of driving the common man insane, in addition to the burden of hunger that he bears on a daily basis. Yet, in the midst of their agony, the citizens have watched government giving grants to pilgrims, preferring to give loans to students.
Was the Presidency right to have allowed the protest to take place? A protest that gave ample time and notice before it happened? Why did the President not call for a dialogue when the organisers of the protests sounded it loud and clear that the hardship was unbearable and that they were hitting the streets in protest? All we heard the President say was that he was not afraid of protest, a show of bravado that perhaps has an origin in the number of tanks and armoured cars in the government’s possession.
A government that actually loved its subjects and meant well for them would have done everything possible to prevent the protest, knowing that protests all over the world go offhand. They hardly end without violence and damaging outbursts of emotions.
Seriously, the President, in his speech, did not address any of the demands of the protesters, which included a reversal of the decision to withdraw subsidy on fuel, making it a law that all elections conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) must be electronically transmitted and uploaded to the IREV for public view, as well as reduction on the cost of governance by pruning the number of ministers.
The more than 10-point demand also sought for reforms in the Judiciary, arrest of the growing insecurity, especially as they affect farmers, release of EndSARS protesters still in detention, which was the judgement of the ECOWAS Court and a declaration of state of emergency in education.
Rather than touch any of these, Tinubu urged the protesting youths out of the streets to make room for dialogue. Again, he failed to spell out the parameters for the dialogue. Some of the demands could have been met without dialogue to start with.
The President spoke on his achievements in 14 months. He failed to realise that some sensible persons could ask, how come the administration had all those interventions and the people are still experiencing hardship? He prided himself in concluding a prolonged negotiation on the minimum wage for the country’s workers and eventually signing N70,000 an amount less than the cost of a 50kg bag of rice and far less in value in the foreign exchange than the previous amount.
What is there to dialogue, to say that results of subsequent elections should not, mandatorily, be uploaded electronically? A sincere president should quickly implement that by liaising with the NASS for the amendment of the Electoral law. Refusal could be construed to be that the president was interested in keeping ajar the window through which he jumped into Aso Rock.
In these past 14 months, while tackling the unfortunate realities of the nation’s economy, the Tinubu administration appeared like a striker in a football match who had dribbled his way into the opponents’ goal post and rather than kick the ball into the net, decided to dribble back home from the 18 yard in a confused stupor. But Tinubu is not stupid and the people know it. That makes him deficient of the public trust, leaving the feeling that his failure to fix the nation’s core issue of fuel and oil theft were deliberate.
At the centre of the hardship is the fuel crisis. How about the President expediting action on local refining of petroleum to deescalate the tension? How about a presidential media chat? If former president Muhammadu Buhari, a former military ruler, could do it, why not a civilian, an avowed democrat such as Tinubu?
The speech, having failed to address even one of the demands of the protesters, gave the impression that the Presidency saw them as frivolous. He was not appreciating the fact that the protesters were benevolent enough not to allow Kenya to happen here, Kenya where youths spontaneously rose against their president, demanding his resignation over bills that sought to tax life out of the people. Nigerian youths did not ask their president out but only called for an end to bad governance.
If the president continues on the trajectory he is gliding on, then, an author that embarks on a book on “How not to be president” should rejoice that a perfect example has been born in Nigeria.
Candidly, the president’s speech has not ended. His handlers should look for the missing parts, join it and return the president to the studio.
Dr. Odu can be reached through dirimrich2018@gmail.com or SMS 07016722929.
“Candidly, the president’s speech has not ended. His handlers should look for the missing parts, join it and return the president to the studio”