When the Bola Tinubu presidency happened in Nigeria in 2023, little did the people know that they were about to embark on a journey into the heart of want and privation. A once vibrant population was about to be reduced to doomed voyagers. But that was hardly known to them.
It unfolded at first like a gossip theatre. People were just wondering whether Tinubu was capable of bringing about a positive difference. Some people thought that the one-time governor of Lagos State had something to commend him. And so, they absorbed the initial shocks with spartan courage. The year quickly wound up amid uncertainty.
Then, 2024 set in. It was thought that the president was going to have a good grip and grasp of presidential governance. But that was never the case. Rather, his administration continued to wobble. The government did not have any sense of direction. Not even a Wale Edun, who some people thought knew a thing or two about the economy, could help the situation. His efforts to explain the conundrum that the government’s economic journey sounded inchoate. He muddled up the confused state even more. There was, truly, no economy for him to coordinate. In fact, the little that Edun knew slipped off his hands. The economy crashed like a pack of cards. The prohibitive cost of petroleum products assumed a damning spiral. Food inflation grew wings. It could no longer be controlled. And the people began to suffer. They are still suffering.
Now the year is about to wind up. The despondency that came with it has become a nightmare. The people can hardly eke out a living. The year’s Christmas season can pass for the bleakest in the country’s history. It has been one long year of blight.
As the people grapple with the tale of woes that was 2024, the coming year is not looking promising. Economic analysts have predicted that the current galloping inflation will worsen in the new year. They are projecting that hunger will bite harder in 2025. Nigerians are therefore being forewarned. They are being asked to brace up for a more devastating hunger crisis.
But we do not really need to rely on the one-hand or on the other-hand economist to know that there is, as yet, no end in sight to the economic crisis in the land. What gives a quick pointer to the hopelessness that lies ahead is the attitude of the current Nigerian leadership to the problem we have on our hands. The Bola Tinubu administration which inflicted the hardship on the people is an arrogant one. It does not care about your opinion on any issue. It is not bothered about whether it is doing the right thing or not. Its modus operandi is just to amble along. It is not looking at any particular destination. It is just running an aimless race. This disposition of the government is at the root of our problem. No government that operates with the level of arrogance that we see in the Tinubu administration will take the people to the promised land.
A good example of the arrogance of power we refer to can be seen in government’s misplaced reaction to the deaths that occurred at relief- sharing centres in some parts of the country. Rather than approach the unfortunate incidents with a sense of remorse, the government is busy dishing out orders and, in some cases, arresting and detaining those who genuinely set out to help the people. The public-spirited individuals who made relief materials available to the people had to do so in order to ameliorate the sufferings of the people. They had to do so because government abandoned one of its primary responsibilities to the people, namely, the welfare of its citizens. Ordinarily, those who set out to help where government failed deserve encouragement and commendation. Instead, they are being brow-beaten. They are being harangued. The police is warning philanthropists to come to it to obtain permission if they intend to distribute food items to the people. The police wants to subject the private initiatives of public-spirited Nigerians to protocol. The police want to regulate or monitor the exercise. With the tall orders issuing forth from government circles, some other philanthropists who have plans to offer relief could be discouraged from doing so. Who wants the police to regulate what is supposed to be a private exercise?
Again, what points to the fact that Nigerians are in for a harrowing experience is the attitude of the president himself. The president’s maiden media chat was an occasion for grandstanding. The president did not set out to face facts. He did not want to realistically address the economic challenges that he created. That was why he told Nigerians that he had no regrets about the withdrawal of subsidy from petroleum products. Of course we all know that the astronomic jump in the cost of petroleum products is at the root of the sufferings that have engulfed the country. The president is insisting on continuing with this regime without telling the people how that will get them out of the present mess. A policy that has destroyed families and reduced millions to beggars ought to be revisited. It ought to be revised with a view to knowing how to make it have a human face. But the Tinubu administration does not believe in revisiting any issue no matter how unpopular or unprogressive.
But then, how has the country gained from the abolition of subsidy on petroleum products? If government has saved any money from the new regime it is operating, where the money? What is it being used for? The people need to feel the practical impact of the much vaunted gains of subsidy removal. What are those gains? Nigerians need to know this.
It is embarrassing that the president was beating his chest about the N70,000 minimum wage. Even the untutored know that the percentage rise in the cost of living has made the new minimum wage a starvation wage. The Nigerian worker was better of before the new minimum wage. The purchasing power of the Naira then cannot be compared to what it is today. Today’s N70,000 can be equated with N700 before the so-called increase in minimum wage.
As if to continue to demonstrate that it must have its way no matter what the people think, government is still flexing muscles over the white elephant called coastal highway. It has announced that there will be an upward review of the cost of the project. It has also said that it will begin phased commissioning of the highway beginning from 2025. Displays such as these are anti-progress. It has been said time and time again that the coastal highway is a road to nowhere. It is just a grand deceit. It could just be a conduit for the siphoning of public funds. But this government is not interested in whatever you say. It must continue to dig in until it achieves its objective, no matter how unpopular. This is part of the harsh reality that the fading year has brought to the attention of Nigerians.
QUOTE:
“Now the year is about to wind up. The despondency that came with it has become a nightmare. The year’s Christmas season can pass for the bleakest in the country’s history. It has been one long year of blight.”
