Nigeria: Tinubu’s Burden And Choices, By Tunde Abatan
According to a sage, “the problems of victory are much more than defeat”.
It is, because the defeated have a chance to go back to the drawing board and replan his move to face the battle again.
But for the victorious, the reverse is the case as he has to perform and prove that his victory is well deserved. He has to perform to change the trajectory of how he defeated his rivals in order to retain and remain in power.
For some, they have three options to confront challenges in office in order to make a difference.
While some prefer to meet the inherited problems that led to their victory, confront it headlong and bear the pains to solve it.
For others they prefer to allow time and chance to solve the problems as the mood of the nation permits and Goodluck to them if they are able to effect any meaningful change.
For the third category, they allow the problem to meet them where they are and wrestle with it either to solve the problem which in most cases would’ve develop a new life of its own or become compounded.
For the last category, it is Goodluck for they would have taken chances with their tenure and unpredictable developments which would either keep them or sweep them out of power.
Since he came to power May 29,2023 barely nine months ago, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu adopted the first option by declaring end to subsidy in his first address to the nation immediately after he got the mantle.
He chooses to do the unthinkable by confronting the hydra headed problem of fuel.
He removed the subsidy which previous government have evaded and by so doing he confronted the problem headlong.
Like the late Wiston Churchill did with the battle of Waterloo, Tinubu refused to give room for public debate but acted.
Till date, the fall out of the subsidy removal has reverberated far and near.
He displayed gut and gusto even when pressure is still being mounted for cancellation.
He even flatly rejected idea of importing food saying, “there is no famine in Nigeria but high prices of food”.
With the decision, he appears not ready to be popular but follow his conviction believing in receiving his right, left and centre by the angry poor who felt the pangs of subsidy directly.
But since he declared he beliefs in the long run the country will be better, Tinubu believes subsidy benefactors who have grown u to a cabal eating deep into nations resources.
Again, few weeks after death of subsidy, Tinubu took on battle against foreign currency cabal by floating the Dollar in the Forex market to the consternation of all.
Things have never been the same and they will probably not be the same again either now or in the nearest future.
Prices have jumped to the rooftop, inflation skyrocket but Tinubu’s and his economic team believes winning the War against currency speculators in the banking Industry is a fait accompli.
Taken darts from restless citizenry, Tinubu also move against Central Bank of Nigeria, -apex bank he described as rotten.
With revelations about how former CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele almost ran aground the apex institution.
Has the new policies and measures put in place by Tinubu’s axe- man, Dr Yemi Cardoso even when he has failed to convince restless citizens who suffer pain and anguish Tinubu’s claims, he is fighting for them in the long run notwithstanding.?
He has often repeated his statements that he asked for the Job and hence does not deserve sympathy but support.
Is he still enamoured by his vision and belief in spite of the growing disinfection in a section of the polity?
But for the determined who would take on both the business elite represented by the banks and oil mafia and the political elite profiting from a lopsided and inefficient Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.
Yes, he was obviously fighting to reduce cost of administration but he has hurt the business and political cum ruling ethnic elite who has over the years benefited from a badly run public enterprise NNPC represents.
Who will save Tinubu as countdown to one year to the average Nigerian is a year of hunger and fall in the standard of living caused by inflation and geometric decrease in the value of the naira.
Now with insecurity assuming frightening dimension, would the clamour for state Police and his tactical endorsement did not pitch him against Northern oligarchs who see in the state police, a threat to dominance of leadership of the nation.
Ordinarily, since state governors are representatives of the people, less opposition should come from the polity -since they are Chief security officers of their state who knows better, could they summon enough wit to reduce the influence of a spoilt elite used to the Military imposed Unitary command of the Federal police in spite of its shortcomings?
Is State police a weapon in the hands of separatists and or sitting governors for fear of being used to change the structure of the country or maintain their hold on their state.
Yes, Tinubu’s did promise more discussions on modalities for setting up State police, it is expected that proponents of Unitarism would stop at nothing to get National assembly to shoot the Bill down in order to maintain status quo.
Could maintaining the status quo improve the decreasing capacity and power of Federal Police and their recruitment and deployment system seen as the root cause of inefficiency and drawbacks.
Though, it would appear that Abdulsamaad Dasuki, the leader of the G-60 legislators rooting for return to Parliamentary system meant well, would they be able to recruit unbelievers from among the NASS who see it as a direct threat to their affluent and ostentatious leaving and by extension their political relevance in a highly monetized political system.
Since the objective of Dasuki and his group is to cut down cost of governance, it is apparent that many of his colleagues would lose their job the way their Senegalese counterpart did two years ago when they threw aside personal comfort and reduce the bicameral legislature to unicameral?
That Dasuki, who already got the nod of Northern powerful elite like Professor Ango Abdullahi to their side, could it mean that the Northern ruling elite who in many ways determines the thinking and behavioural pattern of the masses.
They may be up to securing what they could lose in the Presidential system of rotation in Parliamentary System.
Will Tinubu be able to use the G-60 to his advantage should he decide to run for a second term especially since Dasuki is already talking of a seven-year period to affect the return to Parliamentary rule.
Conversely, could it be that the G-60 are planning a soft transition for Tinubu who would have ended his second term tenure.
Is the G-60 another grand Agenda by Tinubu and Northern power elite to tilt the power back to the North under a new power structure which would make the executive to share power with the legislature.
Is Tinubu with his reforms in the Oil, Banking sector also preparing to go further by tampering with the Civil Service seen by many as the home of corruption partnering with local and foreign contractors in the serial under development of the country via failed projects?
With his hands on all critical sectors of the nation’s life and the attendant backlash of powerful interests, Tinubu’s it would appear is determined to Risk his political goodwill not minding the backlash entrenched interests may have on his political future after 2027.
So far, the party appears to be beside him except for few voices fighting for relevance and a share of the cake.
Will he keep the policies, programmes and party intact as the tenure period moves on gradually to time of renewal?
Time will tell, how long his policies will endure and stand the test thereof.
