1 month ago
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PRESIDENT Bola Tinubu’s 64th Independence anniversary speech was flat, unable to soothe the people’s present pain or galvanise them to face the future with hope. It was more tolerable to read than to hear or watch. He stumbled interminably on the words and was probably detached from what he was reading.
The very first paragraph did him no favours.“Fellow Nigerians,” he said, “I am deeply aware of the struggles many of you face…Our administration knows that many of you struggle with rising living costs and the search for meaningful employment. I want to assure you that your voices are heard.”
The President regurgitated the obvious. The mantra of his administration is that the citizens should be patient for the reform to bear fruits. Along this line, there were positives.
On the security front, the President reeled out his achievements. He cited the killing of 300 terrorist commanders, the fastest rate of any administration. He said many communities have come back home as peace gradually returns.
This offers hope because Nigerian communities are under relentless violence by insurgents and bandits. In many states, bandits have chased away farmers. They attack communities in Kaduna, Zamfara, Benue, Plateau, Sokoto, Niger, Taraba, Borno and Katsina with dire consequences.
Agriculture, the largest component of the $252bn GDP, has gone south. From 24.65 per cent in the first quarter of 2023, and 19.63 per cent in Q4 2023, agriculture crashed to 17.22 per cent in Q1 2024.
On the economy, Tinubu attributed his administration’s efforts to the $37bn accretion in the foreign reserves from the $33bn he inherited from the Muhammadu Buhari government in May 2023. Tinubu said his administration had settled the N30tn fractious Ways and Means debt and attracted $30bn in foreign direct investment. These might be the investments that oil major ExxonMobil ($10bn in offshore oil operations) and others promised during the President’s trip to China.
“Fellow compatriots, our administration is committed to free enterprise, free entry, and free exit in investments while maintaining the sanctity and efficacy of our regulatory processes,” the President said. “This principle guides the divestment transactions in our upstream petroleum sector, where we are committed to changing the fortune positively.”
Embedded in the speech is also the undergraduate loan scheme, the Presidency’s response to the devastating loan flooding in Maiduguri, Borno State, the clearing of the $7bn forex backlog inherited from the previous administration, and the reduction of the debt servicing from 97 per cent of revenue to 68 per cent.
Tinubu spoke about his administration being “committed to finding sustainable solutions to alleviate the suffering of our citizens” and pleaded for “patience as the reforms we are implementing show positive signs,” adding, “We are beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel.”
Shortly after the President delivered the speech, fact-checkers went to work. Most Nigerians live in privations and the reality is against the rosy picture in Tinubu’s speech. His reforms hurt the masses. The naira has plunged to a low ebb against the dollar, and steep petroleum products and electricity costs are deepening poverty.
The President saw these consequences in the August hunger protests and the #FearlessinOctober demonstrations. The government repressed the government, as some protesters were charged with treason.
The founding fathers’ dream of a “great country that would lead the rest of Africa out of poverty, ignorance, and underdevelopment, a beacon of hope to the rest of Africa and the world” is a mirage.
The President seems confused about the political economy. His main argument is that the Supreme Court judgement that authorised the centre to pay the monthly allocations directly to the local governments is controversial. It is an artificial judgement and a pyrrhic victory for the Tinubu administration. It cannot achieve much but will create unintended ruptures in the polity.
Instead, Tinubu should initiate true political reforms. Tinubu should not be deceived that a self-serving paper judgement will entrench development in Nigeria. One of Nigeria’s major problems is sharing revenue monthly, mostly from oil resources. This is upside-down federalism. This encourages laziness in the system. True federalism, which encouraged the federating units to compete in the First Republic, is the abiding solution to Nigeria’s arrested development.
With boldness, the President should return to the restructuring agenda. This is the antidote to his contentious claim that “we have learned to embrace our diversity and manage our differences better.”
Unfortunately, Tinubu side-stepped privatisation and the cost of governance. These are the elephants in the room. Without addressing these twin issues, Tinubu’s tenure might end like the others before him.
Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer ahead of Angola and Algeria, has been unwisely importing refined petroleum products for the past 30 years. Petrol imports constituted 25 per cent of total imports into Nigeria in Q2 2024, per the National Bureau of Statistics. In Q2 2024, Nigeria imported petrol with N3.22tn, the highest ever. It is because its four public refineries with a combined nameplate of 445,000 bpd, are comatose. They have gulped $20bn in wasteful repairs in 20 years. As of September, they have missed seven deadlines to resume production.
Yet, the government pretends that they can become functional. This is national folly. They should be privatised to deepen competition and efficiency and provide jobs in the downstream oil sector. The Ajaokuta Steel Company and the railways deserve the same treatment.
There is too much frivolity in government. Despite a debt overhang of N121tn and fresh borrowings, the government lives in affluence by buying cars, and aircraft, renovating and building houses. This is unnecessary. The administration should realise this is an austere time and live by that precept.
