I desire so much to banish the thought that Nigeria’s elections have always turned out odd because they are usually held in odd years – years that end with odd digits. Curiously too, results are also collated in an odd manner and announced at odd hours. Thereafter, we spend four years waiting for another round of elections and saying odd things to ourselves.
As the odd-numbered year, 2027, stares us in the face, raising our adrenalin in anticipation of another round of polling, the opposition and ruling party politicians are throwing brickbats at each other in a bid to seize power through the ballot box.
While some have genuine intentions for the nation, others appear on the tuff to hoodwink the masses and help themselves from the nation’s seeming inexhaustible natural wealth and resources. May God give Nigerians the sense to discern the class of politicians that would get it right in 2027. May we also detect those who behave like the proverbial well-meaning muscleman who pounds fufu for the widow and, at the end, three-quarters of the fufu disappears into the bag around his neck.
One frequently asked question in the political space, especially from the ruling party and its sympathisers, is: what will the opposition do differently? The questioners assume that the present administration has everything rightly fixed. It removed the scam called fuel subsidy, which gave enemies of the state room to corruptly enrich themselves.
The foreign exchange market was harmonized, with the double-tier dollar allocation abrogated for a unified market. It was to know the right value of our currency. The administration also floated a students’ loan scheme, while taking its hands off some subsidies that had kept the universities going.
Looking back to the inauguration and swearing-in of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in May, 2023, everybody would agree with the assertion that Nigeria’s economy nosedived the moment the President announced the removal of the petrol subsidy on that day. It was done without a cabinet in place. Inflation hit the roof, thereafter, and a majority of citizens in the oil-rich country could no longer afford a daily meal. Transport fares went beyond the reach of average Nigerians as the price of petrol instantly jumped five times higher.
Multinationals relocated as a result of low patronage. The exit of hitherto thriving pharmaceutical companies quadrupled the cost of healthcare while life expectancy of an average Nigerian remained a mere 55 years.
In their various submissions on the subsidy issue, all the major presidential candidates were unanimous on its removal. So, what would they have done differently? About two or more of these opposition candidates had expressed a desire to phase the removal in such a way as not to cause a shock to the economy. Is that not a different way to handle it? One purpose, different methods of implementation.
Still on the subject of fuel, which is the oil that drives the economy, the Bola Tinubu administration has spent three years without providing answers to the paucity of functional refineries in an oil-rich country such as Nigeria. The country is, therefore, constrained to depend on the privately-owned Dangote Refinery to supply the needs of a vast nation such as ours.
That is not all. Veiled turnaround maintenance of long-grounded government refineries has been converted into a drainpipe for public funds in a world-class corrupt system that defies scrutiny. All that corruption and leakage of public money are part of what needs to be done differently.
On the outrageous cost of governance, a section of the opposition has been vehement in demanding that it be reduced to a manageable and efficient size. For instance, Mr. Peter Obi, a strong advocate of a transition from a consuming nation to a producing one, has been shouting himself hoarse about the number of ministries and government departments in the present administration. The President’s fleet of cars numbering more than 100 everyday on his road to the office intimidates the entire Federal Capital Territory. So, also that of the Senate President. The system cascades to the ministers, state governors and local government heads. Government Houses operate in absolute disregard of a sense of frugality even as the indicator needle continues to flicker to the red mark for the economy.
Albeit, many of the departments and agencies have served as jobs for the boys, used to settle those who appear loyal to the administration during campaign periods. Yet, of late, many are being discovered to be fake, having no trace in the statute books but receiving budgetary allocations duly approved by the Legislature. Only heaven knows the number of agencies like the bogus Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council that may have existed in this administration with the connivance of the authorities.
Tinubu works with more than 45 ministers. Legislators give themselves large allowances that eat deep into the public coffers. Productivity takes the backstage.
The crucial issue of security, a major responsibility of any government, has been bungled to the extent that no fewer than 758 schoolchildren and their teachers have been abducted in at least 13 mass school attacks since President Bola Ahmed Tinubu assumed office on May 29, 2023. This represents a surge of more than 400 per cent in school abductions when compared with previous administrations, using the same period as a framework.
Army generals and top police officers have fallen victim to the merciless bandits terrorizing parts of the North. Christians have been regular victims of numerous attacks by religious extremists. Tens of thousands have been forced into poorly maintained internally displaced persons camps. Former President Muhammadu Buhari, also an All Progressives Congress president, had set up a programme supposedly aimed at deradicalizing repentant Boko Haram terrorists.
Tinubu, who had earlier vowed to continue from where Buhari stopped, retained the ridiculous programme that offered terrorists the opportunity to infiltrate the Army and obtain information which they often use to thwart military battle plans. A good number of Nigerian soldiers have been felled in ambushes generated by information leakages. As mindless as that programme has been, Tinubu did not bother to reverse it and punish terrorists accordingly. Are we still asking what should be done differently?
Let’s travel to Lagos, home of President Tinubu, the Lion of Bourdillon, who is now the occupant of Aso Rock, the most important house in the whole of Nigeria. Tinubu is building what he calls a coastal highway intended to run from Lagos to Calabar, a project that would gulp nothing less than N15 trillion. This project had been the dream of pre-war administrations in the country but was shelved because of its huge cost. Tinubu decided to embark on it without an environmental impact assessment. Without following the laid-down procedure that requires tenders for government projects, he awarded the contract to his business cronies, Chagoury and Chagoury.
Suspicions are that the road might not actually go beyond Lagos. No one can explain why the President paid little attention to internal roads, especially the East-West Road, which serves a similar purpose of linking the coastal areas to Lagos, the economic capital of the nation.
We recall the N5bn presidential yacht, the multi-million-naira renovation of the vice-president’s lodge in Lagos, the N40bn allocated to luxury SUVs, among other grandiose projects that contradict the notion that the economy was so bad as to warrant the removal of fuel subsidy.
That abuse of office, and similar acts often happening in this administration, is worthy of change, just as the huge debt profile of the country, courtesy of Tinubu and a weak Legislature, needs to be reversed. On record, Nigeria is owing a whopping $110.97 billion in public debt this year. A proposed N58.18 trillion budget deficit hangs around the country’s neck, and half of the government’s revenue goes into debt servicing.
What about the human rights record? Intimidation of the opposition has come in several forms and from different directions, including court cases, police and DSS arrests, the stifling of businesses belonging to individuals in the opposition, denial of the dividends of democracy to opposition strongholds, and the disruption of opposition party meetings by thugs. And so, the Opposition asks – who is killing us? Who is behind the numerous court cases setting us back? Who, who, who? The answer is no longer blowing in the wind.
Returning to the ruling party’s question above, on a Candid Note, the opposition has so much to do differently for the country to survive. But first, the masses have one crucial thing to do very differently. That thing is to vote wisely in 2027.
Dr Odu can be reached through [email protected] or by SMS on 07016722929.
