Nigerians seem to be an absent-minded lot. We gloss over matters that we should ordinarily make talking points. If there is anything that betrays this tendency in Nigerians, it is their laissez-faire attitude to matters of governance under the Bola Tinubu administration. The government of the day happened upon Nigerians like a thunderbolt.
Nearly three years after, the shock has continued to deepen. Under such circumstances, you will expect that Nigerians would respond appropriately to the disruptions that are taking place every day in their lives. But that is hardly the case. The people are in deep slumber.
If Nigerians are truly alert, they will be asking themselves this question: what will Tinubu be remembered for as their president? If they pose this all-important question, they will have so much to draw answers from. A quick flip through the Tinubu disorder will draw attention to the hardship that the administration represents. Nigerians are operating under an arrangement that has deepened poverty. In Nigeria of today, only the upper class which represents less than one percent of the adult population exists. The rest of the people are grappling with multi-dimensional hardship. This is traceable to the original sin called fuel subsidy removal. Because the government of the day took this decision without thinking through it, hardship became the signature tune of the administration. Nigerians, at first, tried to respond to the disruption. But they could not. What we got instead was a roaring murmur. There was no action. The people settled for ignoble ease.
Then came the domino effect of the sharp increase in the pump prices of petroleum products. Every other item on the shelf, all goods and services responded in a corresponding manner to the fuel price disorder. Since then, life has not been the same again for the ordinary Nigerian. The basic things he used to afford with minimal effort have now eluded them. Those of them who were yet to have houses of their own before the coming of Tinubu have no hope of getting one. Those who had no cars before the Tinubu intrusion have lost hope. They cannot aspire to that level anymore. Even those that had can hardly maintain them. Regardless of all this, Nigerians are trudging on. They are not thinking of how to end the bad regime. They are just moving on in the manner of doomed voyagers.
But the most telling of the Tinubu nightmare is the level of insecurity that has crept into the land. Nigerians who still have their memories intact will not forget how Goodluck Jonathan was hounded out of office in 2015 on account of insecurity. Even though the abductions that took place then in the north east were all contrived, the opposition acted in a manner that suggested that Nigeria was going under. Jonathan and his government were packaged in very uncomplimentary terms. The All Progressives Congress was born in the midst of Jonathan’s travail. Those behind the political party sold it as the rescue vehicle that Nigeria needed to get out of the blight of insecurity. We have not forgotten that Muhammadu Buhari jumped unto this bandwagon ostensibly to save Nigeria from Jonathan. But did he succeed? We are all witnesses to the monumental failure that Buhari recoded in his effort to secure the country. The credentials he flaunted as a military General came to naught. The verdict was that he did not do as much as Jonathan in this regard.
It is important to note that Tinubu, the man at the helm today, was a very prominent member of the opposition who was vociferous in his denunciation of whatever Jonathan stood for. Today, responsibility has shifted. Tinubu is now answerable to Nigerians on matters of security. How is he faring? A dispassionate reading of the Tinubu approach in matters of security tells us that he is not bothered about the ugly state of affairs. He sees it as a new normal; something you need not lose sleep over. For this reason, the president has no decided plan on how to tackle the menace . The killings and abductions that take place every hour in the northern part of the country are overlooked. They are not worth the attention of the government. It is now an indisputable fact that Nigeria is witnessing heightened insecurity under the Tinubu administration. It has not been this bad. Yet, the government that has taken Nigerians to Golgotha is prancing about as if nothing is the matter.
The government is keeping a bold face in the face of the bloodletting that has become a daily fare. Now it has got so bad that a foreign country has volunteered to do for Nigeria what it could not do for itself. I am just wondering what Tinubu and his clan would have done or said if they were not in charge. They would have forced on Nigeria an atmosphere that would have given the impression that the country has collapsed. Indeed, Nigeria has collapsed under Tinubu. But is he seeing that? Do Nigerians even know? This is the question at the center of the disruption that Tinubu has foisted in Nigeria. The people do not seem to know that anything has gone wrong. If they know, they will hold their president accountable. But like Tinubu, Nigerians also feel that what they are going through is normal. They do not need to query the man that has become an affliction in their lives.
It is for this reason that Nigerians are not addressing the real issues as the country prepares for another election. In a proper country, Tinubu would campaign for re-election on the strength of his performance in office. But not so in Nigeria. Nigerians are not ready to ask questions. They are not going to remind him of the hardship he brought to the land. They will not ask him to justify his quest for re-election. Nigerians are not looking at any of these. They do not believe that performance in office is a yardstick for re-election. That is why they are not paying attention to this important factor. Instead, they are calculating the number of governors that Tinubu has bought over to his side. They believe that those governors will win the election for Tinubu in their respective states. That is the state of permutation. That is the mindset that guides what the people do. It is such a shame that a people who have been misgoverned are not thinking of what to do to get out of the mess.
They are not thinking of how to revenge or rebel against their tormentor. Rather, they have given up. They believe that they cannot influence anything. If citizens of other countries of the world feel as helpless as Nigerians, the world will be a jungle. When will Nigerians wake up from slumber? I am just wondering.
QUOTE:
“In a proper country, Tinubu would campaign for re-election on the strength of his performance in office. But not so in Nigeria. Nigerians are not ready to ask questions. They do not believe that performance in office is a yardstick for re-election”.
