Ebi npa wa as comeuppance for uncritical choices

There is a grand delusion that has endured inordinately or inappropriately but which is thankfully wearing off respecting a hyped political ingenuity and suave public finance wizardry of President Bola Tinubu. The lid has been blown off by a staccato of ill-conceived, ill-timed and utterly egregious policy pronouncements of Mr Tinubu himself so soon as he took office as president.

A forlorn hope even of an uneasy restoration to grace has been dashed; public feeling has run so high that angry crowds have daringly picketed public spaces and hurled abusive epithets at Tinubu as president. A long-drawn feud between organised Labour and a promise or pledge- unrequiting government has heightened a melodramatic situation. A vague, temper-unrelieving and irritable body of policy enunciation has further testified to the reputation of the government’s vacuity or want of integrity.

Tinubu’s performance in office has tended to make angels or saints of his predecessors as even their lack-lustre tenures are being acclaimed to be of relative outstanding skill and devotion. Obasanjo’s era, for instance, is being wryly applauded today for a rueful sterling performance. Our people have become enured to a long string of unpleasant political choices. They have come to identify this Tinubu government as capping the people’s resentment of poor governance.

There is a general interrogation of a system that has thrown up a most controversial or insensitive group of people as leaders of government business. How a Nigerian of breeding and background (in terms of the educated elite and the public intellectual) can sully his reputation by defending the mean little band of political neophyte who are visibly reversing our modest progress is beyond the ordinary person’s comprehension.

Is it not high time Nigerians of good track records or antecedents reclaimed our country from the scum that have possessed it? The air that preceded Tinubu’s campaign for the coveted office of president was that of a man in complete control of the processes of government going by his touted or misjudged miraculous Lagos performance bogey, or so his visceral band of admirers marketed his bid. However, in a biting dissent, the people have unmasked the alleged clear-headedness and daringness of the policy formulations of Tinubu and have declared the verdict that they are clearly erroneous and prejudicial.

The current frightening spectre of pervasive hunger in Nigeria exemplified in the mass protests of the harsh or unsmiling economic and social policies of the Tinubu presidency is a fallout of the crisis of survival within the Nigerian family circle. Truck bearing food items including staple foodstuffs are serially attacked and looted in the full glare of the public.

This is a manifest sign of the frustration that has attended the promised but unfulfilled access to ‘palliatives’ positioned to ameliorate the harsh situation of about 300 per cent hike in the pump price of petroleum products especially of gasoline occasioned by the un-reflecting withdrawal of subsidy on the products and of the unscientific floating of the national currency.

The combined effect of these policies has been the untold depreciation of the Naira resulting in the falling or lowering of the people’s purchasing power, and a general hardship situation. Cost of living has hit the rooftop even as hunger stalks the land. The nation’s economic managers have become overwhelmed and have thrown up their arms in open despair.

The underbelly of the presumed superstardom ascribed to some of the economic gurus has been exposed. When the discerning public attempt to subject the performance of the economic team to scrutiny, the Presidency engages in unhelpful argumentum ad hominem or in specious casuistry.

A retort like “Cardoso is obviously a perfect fit for the CBN top job” lamely begs the question. Government has unimaginatively claimed that the variables shaping the value of the national currency “seem to be clearly beyond (Cardoso’s) control.” One wonders what then is his touted suitability for the apex direction of our fiscal and monetary policies.

There is in this government a streak of charlatanry and a patent lack of dedication to principle.

Chief Obafemi Awolowo, undeniably our social and political alter ego, has identified the most pressing problem facing Nigeria and the way out of it. Awo has said: “ … I will like to be permitted to declare that  our most urgent problem today is that which relates to the abject poor in our fatherland. As we have noted, about ninety per cent of our population belong to this class. So  long as this number of people remain  impoverished, our economic growth rate may continue to look good on paper, but our national development will remain depressed and subnormal”

It is a most unfortunate spectacle that today, despite all the frenzied efforts to solve the multidimensional problems of Nigeria, none is  sincerely addressing or perceptively focusing on ameliorating the status of the abject poor in Nigeria. The present hunger situation has put in sharper focus the requirement to address the place of the abject poor in our development strategy.

Awo has intuitively imagined: “Look in whichever direction you like, the omens for Nigeria are dreadful and too uncomfortable to contemplate”

The omens have been no less dreadful or relieved under the circumstances of a tedious succession over time of a vision-barren and desultory leadership.

Awo spiritually concluded that it must be generally agreed that it is providence that has so far saved our ship of state from running upon the rocks or from shipwreck.

Happily, the Nigerian people, serene in their conviction that the danger that hovers over their environment today is transient, have resolved to contend for justice for right and reason; and never to indulge in uncritical, meretricious choice.

Rotimi-John, a lawyer and public affairs commentator, is Deputy Secretary General of Afenifere.