Guardian Nigeria Jul 29, 2024
Whatever happens to the nationwide anti-bad governance protest slated to begin on August 1, let the point be stressed that it is already a huge success, and that going forward, elected leaders shall no longer take the people for granted.
The frenetic efforts to abort the protests. The in elegant and unhelpful propaganda.The threats, blackmail and subterfuge by security agencies. The hurried last-minute consultations. The stolid, yet irrepressible resolve by the organisers. These have stolen from this government its false sense of invincibility and arrogance. They’re afraid and vulnerable.
When columnists write that this democracy is not delivering dividends to the people, government didn’t listen. When data revealed that Nigerians have become poorer than they were even under the Buhari regime, they swaggered more. When food inflation soared to unprecedented height and hunger stalked the land, government information managers blamed it on the opposition.
When it was the turn of Kenya to taste the relentless furry of youths, supporters of this government lived in denial. They sermonised that Nigeria isn’t Kenya. Some theorists said the Kenyan uprising was masterminded by Western governments who do not want anything good to come out of Africa. Really? What about the leaders who steal resources of their people and hide them in Western countries.
African leaders, including lawmakers and cabinet ministers have become investors in choice apartments/estates in the UAE, Canada and the United States. Their people have no access to potable water. They are dying of cholera in the 21st century. Most African countries don’t produce vaccines because governments are waiting for free shipments from the World Health. So, who’s the real enemy of the people?
Youths who make up 65/70 per cent of the population in Africa have been abandoned. The cost of education has ballooned beyond capacities of poorly paid parents. Skills are no longer an option because the incentives are not encouraging. Conglomerates that used to provide jobs are unable to operate at full capacity. Many have closed shop due to high costs. There are no jobs and youths are fleeing.
This situation led to political instability in Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali, when citizens got tired of bad governance. The three countries have parted ways with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and there is turmoil in the sub region. Isn’t that sufficient reason for Nigerian leaders to mend their ways and run a people-centred government?
The All Progressives Congress (APC), deceived Nigerians in 2015, when they claimed to be on a rescue mission. All the good things they promised in their manifesto and campaigns they couldn’t deliver in eight years. Insecurity in the country worsened in the Buhari years, such that farmers in the North and elsewhere became dispossessed and displaced.
Buhari left the country in a quandary; huge and unexplainable debts, banditry and terrorism, crude oil theft, highly polarised polity and a despondent citizenry. Nigerians were conned by the APC in 2015. Year 2023 became a bigger joke.
Despite flowery campaign promises to turn things around for good, Tinubu’s first year was a disaster for most Nigerians. Government policies are anti-people as scripted by the IMF/World Bank; while the people are denied subsidies and made poorer, politicians become richer, greedier and more insensitive.
The first affront on citizens was the purchase of luxury SUVs worth N160 billion for federal lawmakers, a bad example for those in states. That was about the same time government rammed through the purchase of a presidential yacht worth N5 billion in the 2023 Supplementary Appropriation.
The idea of a supplementary budget meant an urgent necessity that could not wait for the next appropriation, for example, paying for cholera vaccines ahead of the next rainy season or paying electricity bills of stranded teaching hospitals to make health accessible to the people.
When there was uproar over the yacht, government conveniently rechristened it an operational naval boat with specialised gadgets. In any case, citizens were told the purchase had been negotiated and concluded by the previous government. The procurement didn’t make sense but it had to be paid for.
Against the reality of an ailing economy and public outcry, the government named a bogus cabinet of 48 members, with some former governors who had been declared financial crimes suspects by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
In addition, there are advisers and special advisers who are drawing salaries and allowances. Given the lean times, Nigerians thought a trim government would be sufficient to deliver a renewed hope agenda. It turned out that this government is not different from the last one in terms of jaded ideas.
Instead of having regard for opinions outside government, the boastful response was that government was creating jobs for same persons who have served in different political capacities since 1999. When commonsense returned momentarily, they realised there used to be the Stephen Oronsaye panel on right-sizing the public service. A committee was tasked to make sense of that in 12 weeks.
It took this government six months to finalise on a new minimum wage with workers. Whereas the Constitution recommends a living wage that can conveniently make life easy for lowly paid workers, Labour was handed a wage of N70,000, at least, to put a bag of rice in the home.
The removal of fuel subsidy and efforts by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to allow the naira find its level among world currencies has offloaded more economic pains on the people. Government said it can no longer bear the burden of subsidies. Let citizens pay market rates for imported petroleum products. Local refineries have refused to work for years and government appears comfortable with that.
The promise by government to turn around the oil and gas sector has remained a mirage. The capacity to produce crude is not sufficient to meet external and local obligations. The country does not earn enough foreign exchange to do business externally and internally. Crude oil theft appears to be at its peak under this government.
According to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, “the statistics on crude oil theft is very alarming, and its negative impact on the economy is quite monumental. For instance, it is estimated that between January and July 2024, Nigeria lost an average of 437,000 barrels of crude oil per day due to theft, vandalism and other criminal activities. At the current price of oil, this translates to over $10 billion over the same period.”
Meanwhile, government claimed it had spent in excess of $1.5 billion to secure oil assets since 2020 with no headway. Among oil producing countries, Nigeria is a bad example. For an oil dependent country, it is suicidal to continue to do things the same old crooked ways.
Citizens are aware that cumulatively, things have been rough with the economy for decades. They do not expect miracles. But they demand sincere leadership by example. They also do not want lies and propaganda, announcing and sharing trillions of naira that do not move the needle on the inflation graph.
To worsen matters, the people are told repeatedly to be patient for the dividends of democracy to mature.When will that happen? According to the Debt Management Office (DMO), the country’s total public debt as of March 2024 stood at N121.67 trillion ($91.47 billion). Yet, this government is not done with taking more loans and the implication is that asking citizens to be patient amid poverty and corruption in high places is delusional.
That is why citizens are saying enough is enough. They want the dividends now or never. At a Sallah feast with President Tinubu in Lagos, the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio proclaimed so magisterially that; “as you coast home to victory for a second term, may all the governors seated here also coast home to a second term victory in their states.” That sounds like a joke, but as far as Akpabio is concerned, this government is on course. It is not.
country crawled out of the 2023 elections mentally and physically bruised and divided. The elections remain a mystery but Nigeria survived. No effort was made by government to review the process, except to give itself a pass mark. The same vitriol and toxicity that characterised 2023 have been carried into governance.
Government’s media advisers sound likespokespersons of former military leaders. They threaten and call leaders of opposition parties unprintable names. Peter Obi is their nemesis. Everything wrong with this government is caused by Peter Obi. Nobody is worth anything in the reckoning of people in government. Their language is foul and filthy.
But their cup is almost full. The flurried steps to counter the anti-bad governance protest have exposed the weakness of this government. They are clutching at straws, consulting merchants of different trades – the religions, traditionalists and other mendicants and parasites, who leech the system from time immemorial, even under Abacha. They have no truth and their god is their bellies, prostitutes to every government in power. They’ve been issuing sermons and veiled threats.
The military, major victims of bad governance have been corralled to threaten citizens not to embark on constitutionally guaranteed peaceful protests. The police, the most neglected of law enforcement bodies and the DSS that only see apparitions, not the real enemies of state, have sided with government. They do not realise that there is no government without the people. Sovereignty belongs to the people, not to bandits and looters.
The gestation period for this mass action appears too long and over-discussed, it may have lost the spontaneity required to power a people’s revolt. Suffice to say that a revolution has already taken place and the takeaway is the humbling of an unfeeling political class. Whatever else is achieved in the days ahead might just be more an icing on the cake. Let this government be warned!
