Outrage over rehash of old policies, threats, failure to soothe protesters

• FG generates N9.1 trillion in six months, says Tinubu
• ‘President’s speech inspires no hope, repetition of old promises’
• Your broadcast offers no solution to the economic hardship – Atiku
• Not addressing violent crackdown by security forces a serious omission, says Soyinka
• Speech empty, full of sound and fury – Ajaero
• Russian flag display: Embassy denies alliance with protesters

Many Nigerians, who have been hopeful of President Bola Tinubu’s soothing words to perhaps calm the nerves of agitated protesters nationwide, got his speech yesterday morning, but without the much-needed soothing effect.

The 15-minute broadcast and 2078-word speech catalogued the controversial policies of the government with an air of achievement, bemoaned the protests, issued some threats against violence, and ended without addressing any of the 10-point requests of the protesters – and much for the concerns of most Nigerians.

The #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria protesters, across various groups nationwide, have been staging protests to press home for an end to anti-people policies, reversal of fuel prices, demand N70,000 minimum wage that has been assented to by Mr President, reversal of the hike in tertiary education fees by many institutions, disclosure of public officials’ salaries and benefits to deepen accountability and transparency.

Also, on the request list are electoral reforms, including the autonomy of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), reforms in the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), a state of emergency on inflation, a reform of the judiciary to ensure swift and fair justice, demand for public school mandates that mandates children of all public office holders to attend public schools in the country.

Similarly, they want government’s patronage of made-in-Nigeria goods, transition to a unicameral legislature, constitutional reforms through scraping of the 1999 Constitution and replace it with a people-made constitution through a Sovereign National Conference, followed by a National Referendum, among other demands.

However, much of the President’s speech bordering on economy, a central theme of the ‘hunger protest’, was an aggregation of updates on ongoing schemes, which many have dismissed as mere paper concepts concerning the biting realities of the national life.

Tinubu insisted that his administration has made “significant strides” in rebuilding the foundation of the economy to guarantee future “plenty and abundance” while mobilising funds creatively without adding to the burden of debt.

Oil production, he said, had reached a new level, hitting an unprecedented 1.61 million barrels per day (bpd) last month, while fresh investments are pouring into the sector to increase future capacity.

“Coming from a place where our country spent 97 per cent of all our revenue on debt service, we have been able to reduce that to 68 per cent in the last 13 months. We have also cleared legitimate outstanding foreign exchange obligations of about $5 billion without any adverse impact on our programmes,” the President told Nigerians, saying the feat has given his team the room to spend more money on the citizens.

The government, he affirmed, has made significant progress in its efforts to save the country from a fiscal disaster as the President disclosed that the Federal Government had doubled its revenue in the first half (H1), generating a total of N9.1 trillion.

Going by the President’s disclosure, the government’s earned revenue would have increased by 121 per cent from N4.11 trillion earned in the period last, according to data source from the Budget Office.

If the government’s revenue profile continues with the same momentum, the annualised revenue for the fiscal year will surpass N18 trillion. The figure would be close to threefold of the government’s best record in recent years.

However, the analysis stops at the nominal value of the revenue performance as the naira has also lost about 70 per cent of its value in the past year, suggesting nothing has changed significantly in the real value of the amount generated.

Reacting to the broadcast, Eze Onyekpere, a fiscal governance expert and Lead Director at the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), said the president spoke about a plethora of initiatives – Skill Up Artisans Programme (SUPA), Nigeria Youth Academy (NYA), National Youth Talent Export Programme (NATEP), Digital and Creative Enterprises Programme (IDICE) – which are not new.

“They are supposed to be ongoing and providing succour when the bulk of the proposed beneficiaries are the ones championing the protest. These programmes are paper tigers,” he said, adding that they only work for a few politically connected individuals, unfortunately.

He said the President merely justified his poor performance; offered nothing new; promised no course correction and insisted on continued administration of a failed medicine.

Also, the National President of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), Kabir Ibrahim, said the President merely repeated everything he said about the economy about a month ago. He added that the policy actions he mentioned have been ongoing.

“My major concern is implementation. We do not say the policies are not good, it is the implementation that is key. If they can implement the policies judiciously, I am sure things will change for the better. So, let us give him about six months more to see how far he will go,” he said.

Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, also faulted the national broadcast made by President Tinubu, pointing out that it didn’t offer solutions to the economic hardship.

In a statement signed by his Media Adviser, Paul Ibe, Atiku noted that the President’s address “lacks credibility and fails to offer any immediate, tangible solutions to the Nigerian people.”

“Given the extensive publicity surrounding the protests and the threats issued by government officials against demonstrators, one would have expected President Tinubu to present groundbreaking reforms, particularly those aimed at reducing the exorbitant costs of governance,” he added.

Atiku who is the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 general election, added: “The President ignored the protesters’ demands, such as suspending the purchase of aircraft for the President, downsizing his bloated cabinet, or even eliminating the costly and burdensome office of the First Lady, who has been indulging in extravagant trips at the nation’s expense.”

On the allegation that the protests were sponsored by the opposition, Atiku said that the opposition did not create the economic quagmire that is experiencing pushback from the masses.

“This disaster is solely the result of the Tinubu administration’s trial-and-error policies. It is high time they stopped the blame game and faced the reality of their failures. This administration has failed on all fronts, even in the simple task of keeping a presidential speech confidential.”

For the Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, President Bola Tinubu’s failure to address the violent crackdown by security forces on protesters is a serious omission in the president’s speech.

In a statement issued on Sunday after Tinubu’s address, Soyinka said his outline of the government’s remedial action since inception, aimed at warding off just such an outbreak, would undoubtedly receive expert and sustained attention both for effectiveness and in content analysis.

“My primary concern, quite predictably, is the continuing deterioration of the state’s seizure of protest management, an area in which the presidential address fell conspicuously short.”

He argued that the government’s approach only encourages impunity among security forces and perpetuates a cycle of resentment and reprisals.

The violent response to these protests, he warned, represents a regression even more severe than the deadly aftermath of the #EndSARS protests.

“Such short-changing of civic deserving, regrettably, goes to arm the security forces in the exercise of impunity and condemns the nation to a seemingly unbreakable cycle of resentment and reprisals.

“Live bullets as a state response to civic protest – that becomes the core issue. Even tear gas remains questionable in most circumstances, certainly an abuse in situations of clearly peaceful protest. Hunger marches constitute a universal S.O.S., not peculiar to the Nigerian nation. They belong indeed in a class of their own, never mind the collateral claims emblazoned on posters,” Soyinka said.

MEANWHILE, the Russian government has responded to reports that its flags were displayed during protests in Kano on Saturday.

Press Secretary of the Russian Embassy in Abuja Yury Paramonov, denied any Russian involvement in these protests or any other incidents in Nigeria.

He said, “The Russian Embassy in Nigeria has no information about any groups of protesters using the Russian flag or other state symbols of our country. Even if such incidents did occur, it would be the decision of individuals. We do not know why they might have used Russian flags.”

This reaction came as Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) described yesterday’s broadcast by President Bola Tinubu as an empty speech, adding that it would have been an opportunity to douse the tension in the land and halt the process of which the nationwide protest was carried out, rather he exacerbated the situation and deepened the people’s anger the more.

NLC President Joe Ajaero said Nigerians expected that his broadcast would have stopped hunger and hardship but was full of threats and rehashing of old achievements that never had any impact on the lives of the citizens.

According to him, “his speech was empty, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing but threats and rehash of old promises, trying to plead to ethnic device and religion, which is not good for the country.

“Have you seen any bag of rice distributed to state governors or bought a bag of rice for N40,000 since it was announced? All these are stories.

“We expected that his speech would have met at least two of the demands made by the protesters and then call for dialogue. If you reduce the price of petrol, for instance, it will reduce many things or the electricity tariff will impact the lives of the people positively,” Ajaero said.

Director-General/Chief Executive of NECA, Adewale-Smatt Oyerinde, while reacting to the protests, called for the government’s urgent action to address the economic contradictions organised businesses are challenged with.

He lamented that four businesses in the real sector have witnessed a combined loss of over N533 billion in the first half of 2024.

He urged the government to quickly address the seeming economic contradictions that are strangulating the Organised Private Sector (OPS) and stopping it from fulfilling its role as the engine of development, as well as enabling the economy to open up and return to the path of rapid growth.

Sharing some of the contradictions, Oyerinde said that while the nation grapples with a high unemployment rate and low business capacity utilisation, some regulatory agencies are still creating bottlenecks for business growth.

He said even though the Taiwo Oyedele-led Presidential Committee on Tax and Fiscal Policy Reforms had done well in engaging critical stakeholders and building consensus on the tax reforms; some agencies continued to introduce new levies and other forms of taxes, negating the main reason for the establishment of the Presidential Committee.

Several stakeholders across the Southwest geopolitical zone, yesterday shared different opinions about President Tinubu’s nationwide broadcast, most of them saying the speech contains less or nothing regarding the demands of the protesters.

A former Nigerian Ambassador to the Philippines, Dr Yemi Farounbi, yesterday, also reckoned that President Bola Tinubu’s broadcast didn’t address any of the demands of protesters and neither did it seem that the presidency understands the level of hardship citizens go through.

Farounbi told The Guardian that the speech would not be able to pacify Nigerians, especially the protest, adding that Tinubu’s plea for stoppage of the demonstration may not be obeyed.

Though, he noted that Tinubu was able to highlight some of his challenges, the former Ambassador said the achievements are the reasons for the protest and that the president ought not to have only reeled out the actions that provoked the demonstration in the first place.

The media icon maintained that the broadcast failed to address issues agitating the minds of Nigerians and it did not provide any succour to the teeming populace.

According to him, “The President’s speech is a beautiful piece that summarises what he has done and for which he ought to have been commended, but I believe the submission of all the beautiful things he has enumerated there brought up to a situation, which the protesters are protesting again.

The elder statesman expressed worry over the carrying of flags of Russia and Portugal by some protesters in the North, saying such development ought to have elicited a response from President Tinubu to assuage them in believing in the country.

He said: “The part of the protest that worries me is the fact that in Sokoto, they are asking for the military to take over, in some parts of the north, they were carrying the flags of Russia, Portugal and of Putin, which seems to suggest that they are being influenced by whatever is happening in Niger. In that kind of situation, I think they need something a little more dramatic that will assuage them and that there can be changes tomorrow.”

If the presidency continues to shun the demands of the protesting citizens and reel out what his administration had done or doing, Farounbi stated, “If it is an explanation of what they (presidency) have done or what they are being done, it is not likely that the protesters will achieve anything.”

The Social Democratic Party (SDP) presidential candidate in the 2024 general elections, Adewole Adebayo, criticised both the protesters and President Tinubu for talking at cross-purposes and sidestepping the real issues at hand.

Speaking with The Guardian, Adebayo stated that the protesters’ demands will not solve Nigeria’s problems, and President Tinubu’s speech was directed at his critics rather than addressing the protesters’ concerns.

Adebayo argued that the protests are aimed at getting palliatives, which President Tinubu has already offered within the framework of his economic policies.

However, Adebayo believes that these policies are flawed and will not bring about meaningful change.

The presidential candidate expressed disappointment that opposition leaders and protesters lack ideological clarity on alternative policy frameworks that could bring about real solutions.

He noted that many have voiced support for the protests but have not committed to changing the current policies if they come into power.

Adebayo reiterated his stance against the current economic policies, stating that they are bad and will not develop Nigeria.

He believes that the neoliberal establishment, including President Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, share the same flawed ideology that prioritises palliatives over meaningful change, saying the President is managing it even better than Obi and Atiku would have.

Adebayo said he wasn’t surprised by President Tinubu’s speech, which he saw as a reiteration of his commitment to the same policies he campaigned on.

I was not expecting anything special in the president’s speech. And he only reiterated his conviction that he is on the right path, the same path he campaigned on and the same path he began on May 29, 2023, and the same path the protesters want him to keep going on but with no realistic consequences or with fewer hardships.”

On assumption of office last year, Tinubu removed fuel subsidies, a major drain on the country’s resources. The decision pushed up significantly the revenue available for disbursement to three tiers of government. But the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) shortly after the fuel subsidy removal liberalised the foreign exchange market, a decision that triggered a sharp depreciation in the naira.

In his nationwide speech in response to the ongoing #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria protest across the country, he said both decisions were hard choices taken to “solve long-term problems for the sake of now and our unborn generations”.

“For decades, our economy has remained anaemic and taken a dip because of many misalignments that have stunted our growth. Just over a year ago, our dear country reached a point where we could not afford to continue the use of temporary solutions to solve long-term problems for the sake of now and our unborn generations.

“I, thereafter, took the painful yet necessary decision to remove fuel subsidies and abolish multiple foreign exchange systems which had constituted a noose around the economic jugular of our nation and impeded our economic development and progress. These actions blocked the greed and the profits that smugglers and rent-seekers made. They also blocked the undue subsidies we had extended to our neighbouring countries to the detriment of our people, rendering our economy prostrated,” Tinubu stated.

Sadly, the President’s claim is far from the truth. As the value of the naira nosedive, fuel subsidy has reportedly returned with the differential between the landing costa and pump price of motor spirit widening to about N500 per litre.

The Accelerated Stabilisation and Advancement Plan (ASAP) puts the total subsidy spending last year at N3.6 trillion while this year’s spending is expected to increase by 50 per cent to N5.4 trillion.

The arbitrage in the West African market has also reactivated cross-border smuggling. The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) recently raised concerns over the renewed fuel smuggling to West African neighbours, where the average price of the product is estimated at N1790 per litre.

Despite the return of the ancient crisis associated with fuel, Tinubu hailed his reform as he struggled to calm angry Nigerians, saying: “These decisions I made were necessary if we must reverse the decades of economic mismanagement that did not serve us well. Yes, I agree, the buck stops on my table. But I can assure you that I am focused fully on delivering the governance to the people – good governance for that matter.”

He also spoke about the government’s intervention in compressed natural gas (CNG)-powered vehicle conversion, saying the ecosystem is creating massive jobs for the youths.

He also claimed that the government has created 240,000 jobs by establishing 10 micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) hubs. Its Consumer Credit Corporation, students’ loans, which will get an additional N50 billion injection and several agriculture initiatives have increased the economy’s performance.

“Additionally, we have secured $620 million under the Digital and Creative Enterprises (IDiCE) – a programme to empower our young people, creating millions of IT and technical jobs that will make them globally competitive. These programmes include the Three Million Technical Talents scheme. Unfortunately, one of the digital centres was vandalised during the protests in Kano,” he regretted.

The President expressed the administration’s commitment to food autonomy, saying the target is to “cultivate more than 10 million hectares of land to grow what we eat”. The states, he said, would provide the needed land while the FG would supply support incentives to the scheme that will put millions of people to work.