Happy new year to the good people of a great nation – Nigeria! What a rough and tough year 2024 had been! To have survived the turpsy-turvy of last year shows how resilient and long-suffering Nigerians are. What with the rising cost of living that threatens to snuff life out of the common man. Life is full of ups and downs. Economists will say ceteris paribus, meaning all things being equal. For most Nigerians things are not balanced. More people dropped into poverty and unemployment while insecurity remains a daunting challenge.
What are the salient political events that shaped 2024? There are several of them including the fact that Nigeria was able to celebrate 25 years of unbroken, uninterrupted civil rule i.e. 1999 to 2024. National Assembly inaugurated constitutional reform committees, the Independent National Electoral Commission came up with 142 political cum electoral reforms recommendations; INEC conducted Edo and Ondo off-cycle governorship elections in September and November 2024; the July 11 Supreme Court judgement granting financial and administrative autonomy to the Local Governments; the raft of Local Government elections across several states; leadership crises and supremacy battles in many of the 19 registered political parties currently operating in Nigeria; the gale of defections of lawmakers from the opposition political parties to the ruling All Progressives Congress; the merger talks among the opposition political parties and President Tinubu’s cabinet reshuffle.
INEC’s chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu last month outlined the commission’s vision to address long-standing challenges and modernise election management. He was quoted as saying “Having released our 524-page main report on the election, a copy of which is available on our website, we have consulted widely internally with our own officials and externally with all major stakeholders. With the conclusion of five major off-cycle Governorship elections and nine out of 21 bye-elections since the 2023 General Election, this is the most appropriate time for us to commence the implementation of the recommendations arising from our review of the General Election.”
Yakubu said further that “From the internal and external engagements, the Commission has identified 142 recommendations dealing with the general state of preparedness, voter management, voter education and public communication, political parties and candidate management, electoral operations and logistics management, election officials and personnel, partnership and collaboration, monitoring and supervision, election technology, voting and result management, election security, electoral offences and the electoral legal framework. Of these, 86 require administrative action by the Commission, 48 depend on collaboration with stakeholders such as security agencies and civil society organisations, and eight involve legislative amendments by the National Assembly.” It is hoped that the National Assembly will expedite actions on constitutional and electoral reforms in this new year so that implementation can begin in earnest ahead of the 2027 General Elections. I must however hasten to say that attitudinal reform is imperative if we are going to have credible and peaceful elections.
One of the landmark events of 2024 was the July 11 Supreme Court judgement on Local Government Autonomy. This was a fillip that has been widely lauded and remains a legacy achievement of the President Tinubu administration. The Supreme Court by that verdict said the funding accruable to the 768 Local Governments and six Area Councils should be paid directly into the accounts of the councils rather than the Joint State / Local Government Account which has been grossly abused over the decades by the state governors.
There is also the adherence to section 7 of the Nigerian Constitution which states that Local Governments should be democratically governed. Thus, several states have conducted local government elections in 2024. However, the quality and credibility of these elections leaves much to be desired. The ruling party at the state level end up winning all the councillorship and chairmanship seats in a grassroots election where many of the opposition political parties are supposed to win some seats. The exception to the landslide and ‘moonslide’ victories by the ruling party in the states happened in Rivers and Abia States where an orchestrated and stage-managed political upset was recorded in which case opposition political parties roundly defeated the party of the state governors.
The purported ‘coronation’ rather than elections at the local government levels in Nigeria made the National Assembly to toy with the idea of establishing a cetralised electoral management body called Local Government Independent Electoral Commission. Yesterday on the Nigerian Television Authority, I argued that for there to be credible LGA elections, financial autonomy must be granted to the State Independent Electoral Commissions. This was the game changer for INEC since 2010. It is heartwarming that Nigeria has successfully had seven general elections and hundreds of bye-elections as well as off-cycle governorship elections in 25 years. Progress is slow but I dare say that our electoral democracy is taking root.
On the economic front, a number of epochal events did happen in 2024. They include the restreaming of Port Harcourt and Warri refineries after decades of wasteful and unproductive turn around maintenances of the state owned refineries. The effective commencement of production of refined petroleum products by the Dangote Refinery and Petrochemical Company and the kick starting of the presidential initiative on compressed natural gas which has seen to many commercial and private vehicles going to recalibrate their vehicles to use CNG. Today, CNG buses are plying Nigerian roads and it is hoped that with the reduction in the pump price of petrol from over N1,000 to about N935 per litre, transport fare will soon start to come down after the festivities.
2024 also saw to the finalisation and passage into law of a new national minimum wage of N70,000 from the previous N30,000. Federal Government and most of the states have started paying the new minimum wage. However, several members of the organised private sector and the informal businesses are yet to comply. To make matters worse, the purchasing power parity of naira has weakened while headline inflation stands at about 34 per cent, food inflation is over 40 per cent. The rising cost of living has made many Nigerians to drop below poverty line so much so that the 133 million multidimensional poor Nigerians of 2022, according to National Bureau of Statistic, has substantially increased. This manifests in the over 80 Nigerians who were trampled to deaths across several states while struggling for food palliatives from charity organisations and philanthropists. Mention must be made of August 2024 hunger protests otherwise referred to as #EndBadGovernance protests across the country
Unemployment figures have soared due to the inclement business environment. Many nano, micro, small and medium enterprises have closed down due to high operational cost. Interest rate on loans in Nigeria at present is over 30 per cent. However, Tinubu administration has disbursed billions of naira in loans to small and medium business enterprises at single digit interest rate. In this new year, government will need to reprioritise ease of doing business.
One of the most audacious attempt at economic restructuring in 2024 are the four Tax Reform Bill which President Tinubu has sent as executive bills to the National Assembly. Northern governors and lawmakers seem to be against a section of the bill that has to do with the sharing formula for Value Added Tax. However, the president has instructed the National Assembly to liaise with the Federal Ministry of Justice to look into the grey areas with a view to striking a compromise. I do hope this landmark bills will be passed in this new year as there are a lot of benefits to ordinary citizens in those bills. May this 2025 be a better year for us all!
X: @jideojong
