OPINION: Presidency Watch

By Steve Osuji

This townhall is truly different…

TROUBLE SLEEP, YANGA WAKE AM: This job is surely the toughest in the world. Now, to start off shooting yourself in the foot would simply render it a brutish enterprise. This seems to be what President Bola Tinubu has done to himself. Yoruba would call it asasi, a spell. Or as Fela sang: Trouble sleep, yanga go wake am,  na palaver you dey find!

By a reckless proclamation on his inauguration podium, Tinubu seems to have cast a spell on his government all by himself. “Subsidy is gone.” That’s what he haughtily tells Nigerians as he was being sworn into office on Monday, May 29, 2023.

Since then, Nigeria has not been the same, and will never be. The new president too, surely must  be feeling shell-shocked by the instantaneously and unexpected outcome of that simply,  unprocessed statement.

I wager that if he has a chance to relive May 29, 2023, he would banish the subsidy sentence from his speech. Now the word is out, he cannot take it back. With one reckless swagger, he has sentenced himself into an untold wahala for as long as he remains in office.

The excuse for such grievous,  unforced error is that he is sticking to a law already made by his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari in the current budget that requires that Petroleum Subsidy be terminated by end of June. Therefore, no budgetary provisions were made, effective June ending. Further, by virtue of the Petroleum Industry Act, (PIA) of course passed by the National Assembly, the subsidy, whatever dragon it may be, is to have been completely vanquished by end of June.

This is what Tinubu worked into his wonky speech and this is what his people have been parroting as their thoughtless action slaps them smack in the face. To implement a bad law is a foolish thing to do by itself,  but for a president to implement a bad law made by a predecessor speaks to a malady that must not be mentioned in public.

It could be either that Tinubu walked into Buhari’s trap or that he’s being vengeful to the Nigerian people who have not shown him much love. Or a third  and most likely scenario is that Tinubu and his people didn’t think through the subsidy removal issue and therefore didn’t expect this earthquake of an outcome. But for sure, the Tinubu presidency has bought a tsunami and hurricane for itself right from day one. This government needs no opposition party anymore, it has co-opted the  entire people of Nigeria as a counterforce to its administration.

IMPOVERISHIING A POOR NATION: It took President Buhari and the APC about eight years to throw about 50 million Nigerians into poverty and earning Nigeria the poverty capital of the world. But it may have taken just a moment of thoughtless bravura for President Tinubu to throw another 50m down the negative space that’s poverty. Tinubu hereby starts his presidency by tactlessly voiding the already deprived masses of the people. About 133 million are already in the dungeon of life. Apparently, Tinubu cannot ‘see’ this. And now we see a harrowing image of Tinubu, acting the tough guy and personally operating the pay loader for packing millions  of Nigerians into hades, where he probably  thinks they belong. It’s ’s as if he thinks he  needs to void the people first in order to safe them!

The economy will collapse, the Tinubu people say, if so-called subsidy is not hastily terminated. Logic: it’s better for the poor to be terminated instead of the economy. But we have heard this war song for over three decades. It’s actually composed by the Bretton Wood capitalist gang of the West. President Ibrahim Babangida sang it in the 90s, he tried to roll over the people by introducing a sharp fuel increase. A bloody nationwide riots ensued and the military President had to reverse himself. President Olusegun Obasanjo did his bit. President Goodluck Jonathan tried it in 2012 with yet another sharp petrol price increase. It was a certain Bola Tinubu (now President Tinubu) who led the mass protest. He railed at Jonathan in brilliant speeches about how he broke social contract with the Nigerian people and imposed what Tinubu described as “Jonathan tax” on them.

Now President Tinubu has imposed the mother of all fuel price hikes – from N185 to N500. Over 150%. The sharpest ever.

In previous times, the subsidy removals were discussed and processed extensively with possible palliative measures agreed upon. In this Tinubu era, he had not even sat down on his presidential seat yet. So he had no seat, he had no Petroleum minister,  not even a single appointee to lead the thought on such a ground-breaking policy. Of course there was no thought whatsoever gone into the pronouncement. Is this anyway to run a country?

NOW THAT I AM IN POWER, WHAT AM I GONNA DO:  the Tinubu era kicks off in utter turbulence and social upheaval. The first week has quickly rolled by and nobody seems to know what to do. People are seen milling aimlessly around the presidency and we see so many useless visitation by cronies and party hogs. Sixty days have passed since February 25 that the presidential election was conducted. But a close aid said recently that President Tinubu would announce his cabinet in about 60 days. In other climes,  it takes just a couple of days.

But what galls is that after taking such a long time to set up the Executive Council, it’s the same old, jaded crowd that gets nominated. For instance the already announced Secretary to the Government of the Federation, George Akume, (former failed governor of Benue State) will never bring anything new to the table besides the old tableau of graft, ineptitude and official blindness.

Same goes for Femi Gbajabiamila, announced as Chief of Staff to the President, (CoS). A very poor choice it is indeed because Gbaja is not a top-notch process man. For an aged, ailing President, the Office of the CoS, would virtually run the country. Gbaja lacks such rigour. A Babatunde Fashola character but not necessarily him. Having been used and abused in the last 24 years suggests he must take a break.

Why is NASS not inaugurated immediately to be able to take off in the business of running an already ruined country? What is the cost of all this unnecessary delays in getting government going? It’s as if President Tinubu was caught by surprise…

We are told that subsidy would bring down Nigeria but keeping a country in abeyance for weeks and months without a cabinet costs more than any subsidy. So much for hitting the ground running.

Finally, one guesses that by now, President Tinubu can see that this town hall is truly different from BALABLU!