By Biyi Oduyale
We thank God for the relative peace in the country in spite of the hues and cries. Nigeria as a nation has seen it all and weathered through a lot of storm in it’s almost 64years of sovereignty. Is it the post independence political crisis in the Western Region which surreptitiously prepared the fertile ground for the first military coup that also gradually snowballed into the Nigerian civil war?
The pogrom in the North which was a direct precursor of the civil war? The civil war itself and the June 12 1993 ill fated election and its aftermath?
This is not to forget the series of military putsches that had taken place and lately the seeming endless terrorism, otherwise called Boko Haram and the series of kidnapping, banditry and other forms of insecurity.
More praiseworthy is the fact that the nation has had uninterrupted 25years of civil rule since the military handed over power in 1999.
Ironically the country seems to be going down deeper and deeper since then with successive governments performing poorer than it’s predecessors.
The most significant benefits the nation derived from civil rule since the past 25years are deregulation of telecommunications, banking reforms and the forgiveness of it’s debts, all of which, ironically, happened during the 8year reign of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.
In spite of these and other notable achievements of the Obasanjo regime, there were a lot of things he did wrongly, probably because of his military background. Some of his excesses are the idea of of taking issues personal, using few legislators to impeach governors that were in his bad book, forcing his party chairman to resign, at gun point, as speculated by some people, spearheading the kidnapping of a sitting governor by political thugs, changing the leadership of the national assembly at will, etc. Infact, he went away with many of those atrocities mainly because of the desire of the people to ensure the success of the then nascent democracy.
The brevity of the reign of the late Umar Yar’adua coupled with his long absence from office due to the debilitating sickness that eventually killed him, did not really allow for the type of performance that can be objectively assessed. Nevertheless, it is on record that he initiated the amnesty program for Niger Delta militants which went a long way in restoring peace, relatively in the whole region.
Yar’adua’s death eventually paved the way for the ascension on his former deputy, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, who ruled so lethargically and uninspiringly like a reluctant leader. He was so weak and profligate that by the time he left barely five years after coming on board, he had made nonsense of the yeoman’s effort of Obasanjo in the area of the nation’s debt forgiveness by virtually running the nation’s economy completely aground and incurring huge debt for the country. Another area where he failed woefully is that of insurgency (Boko Haram) which he carelessly allowed to fester and later became a monster and the nation’s albatross, even to the present moment.
This is apart from the deregulation of electricity whose handling was less than neat and the process completely condemnable. Despite his lackadaisical attitude to governance, some notable achievements like the establishment of federal universities in the state that had none and refusal to succumb to the ceaseless pressure of the international community to legalize gay marriage and lesbianism, among others, can be attributed to him.
It was the near state of hopelessness coupled with the antecedents of the candidate of the opposition party (APC) that paved the way for the emergence of a new government. The new helmsman (Muhammadu Buhari) came with a lot of hopes and promises, especially bearing in mind how he practically moved mountain in his first coming 31years earlier as a no nonsense military head of state but in no time such hope became a forlon one that paled into a huge disappointment. He practically became a complete shadow of his former self, performance wise, to the extent that a few segment of the country were of the opinion that it was a cloned version of him the nation had as ruler.
It was initially believed that the 16year rule of PDP were years of caterpillars and cancer worm and that the new government of APC, with it’s avowed progressivism would be able to reverse the trend, rescue the situation and deliver the country from PDP’s misrule. It eventually turned out that such hope and expectations were grossly misplaced as the APC has put every foot wrong since the past 9years of it’s administration, which lend credence to the earlier remark that successive governments in Nigeria were always performing worse than their predecessors.
As it is usually the case with outgoing governments in Nigeria, the people became so disenchanted and impatient with Buhari that they resorted to blackmailing his government, first, that it was an interim government that would take over from him and that some policies made at the tail end of his administration, like the change of the colour of the nation’s currencies, which resulted in unprecedented scarcity of the naira notes, were meant to disrupt the transition and put stumbling block in the way of the party’s candidate. Thank God that we eventually had, not just a successful transition but, one of the most transparent elections ever.
Despite his failings, the government of Buhari can be attributed with some notable achievements like resuscitation of and modernisation of the nation’s railway service, construction of East-West road, the 2nd River Niger bridge at Onitsha, reconstruction and repair of many notable highways like the ever busy Lagos-Ibadan expressway and so on, continuation of the relentless fight against insurgency, war on corruption, even though it eventually turned out to be feeble, etc.
The new government of president Tinubu took off with a lot of hope that at least a seemingly competent hand who supposedly laid the foundation of the massive modern development that Lagos had been witnessing since the past 25years and one of the patriots that fought the military to a standstill and ensured it’s exit, was deservedly taking over the nation’s administration. Alas, the high hope and expectations became completely misplaced as the government put the very first step wrongly through it’s s self destructive pronouncement of the removal of fuel subsidy right on the day of it’s inauguration, and the centre could not hold since then. This is a completely surprising pronouncement bearing in mind that petrol is the soul and lifewire of the nation’s economy, moreso that the outgone government which was shying away from the ripple effect of the subsidy removal made the subsidy budget to last till end of June 2023.
As expected, prices of goods and services went haywire and the Nigerian masses continue to sink deeper, wallow and swim in unprecedented poverty and penury. Exchange rate of naira against other notable foreign currencies continued to nosedive on daily basis, like never before. Although the president promised to remove the subsidy and the people were made to believe that continuation of fuel subsidy was not sustainable, but the haste with which it was done without any plan for the amelioration of the expected ripple effect was the problem.
Worse still is the fact that the same government continue to pay about 200% of the amount removed as subsidy through the back door as fuel subsidy and that is why the price of petrol remain at between #580 & #650 while the price of a litre of kerosine (the costliest of the petroleum products available to the common man) stands at #1600. That is why some people are of the opinion that the government is operating a voodoo economy.
It is on record that the Babangida’s government bought a lot of buses and sold them to transport groups at highly subsidized rates in the 80s so as to cushion the effect of the little increase in fuel price then. I still remember that we were boarding the people’s buses for just 50kobo then from Lagos to Abeokuta. In like manner the Abacha government established the PTF where the money realized from a little increase in petrol price then by the federal government was channelled. The fund was used for developmental projects like road construction, purchase of medical equipment and drugs for hospitals and books and other educational materials for schools. Rather than doing similar things this time around with the humongous amount realized from subsidy removal, the government in it’s wisdom, decided to be increasing the monthly allocation to states in which the masses are not really benefitting and worse still, gave each state governor a princely sum of #5billion for the so called palliative which they did not do transparently.
This is tantamount to pauperising the masses to enrich few individuals like the governors and legislators who were also given thousand bags of rice (on paper) which were not distributed to people in their constituencies as envisaged.
Nigerian governments are very adept in misplacing their priorities, or how else can the government justify the fact that a whopping sum of #90billion public fund was given to individual pilgrim as transport subsidy whereas the same government is still struggling over loans for students that are the future of the country.
This is apart from the fact that the same government is merely proposing to build hostels in 12 federal universities with just #1billion. There are a lot of economic measures the fund can be used for that will bring relieve to the masses. Nigeria is a secular state while religion is a personal matter of individuals. Does it mean that the same government will spend same amount when the christians would be going to Jerusalem on holy pilgrimage, at least, for religious balancing?
We shall wait till then to know what will happen but in my view l think that the Nigerian governments are always taking the people they rule for granted.
There just too many areas where the government is either being reckless in spending or misplacing it’s priority like a #150million worth of SUV car for each of the 469 federal legislators, many of who in defence, said that it is only such type of vehicle that can assist them to ply the nation’s bad roads to visit their constituencies. The construction of a so called 700km coastal road from Lagos to Calabar is ill-timed and lam hoping to be disappointed if and when it is completed. There is also the #5billion dollar presidential yacht, in this austere time, and so on.
Although the government is just one year old, met an economy that is in comatose and not expected to perform any magic that will revamp it in a jiffy, nevertheless, the government is not supposed to adopt policies that will complicate an already bad economic situation or spend money recklessly like no man’s business.
Frugality should be the government’s watchword because never in the history of the country had things been this bad where prices of goods and services go up for between 400%-600% within just one year of a new government. The rate of inflation is so high and economic situation so bad that they have paled whatever little achievements made by the government into insignificance. It is hoped that the government will continue to listen and reverse some of it’s obnoxious policies as it has done in few cases which can be regarded as some of it’s few achievements.
Finally, in Nigeria’s 64 years of nationhood, the military ruled for almost 30years while the civilians have ruled for a little over 34years and therefore need to braze up and do more because many of the landmark projects like the refineries, 3rd mainland bridge(the second longest in Africa), Lagos-Ibadan expressway(the busiest in Africa)etc are made by the military. Even the deregulation of telecommunications, banking reforms, the rescusitation and modernisation of railway, 2nd Niger bridge, East-West road, were all done by presidents that will prefer to be identified more with the military than politicians.
BIYI ODUYALE adebiyioduyale@gmail.com. (An educationist and a former school administrator)
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