Asiwaju Bola Tinubu celebrated his one year in office as the President of Nigeria on May 29, 2024 and it is in order to give a bird’s eye view of the journey so far. Though some could argue that it is probably earlier to be categorical about the trajectory of the country’s fortune under his dispensation; it is also true to remember that the morning shows the day.
As we commence this conversation we must thank God for the life of the President for the return of fairly good health as there was palpable fear during the campaigns that the President’s health conditions were not up to what was required to husband the affairs of a country such as Nigeria which has missed many opportunities to take-off and therefore clearly in hurry to record some progress. We must thank God for the President and for Nigerians that his health surprisingly improved even as there was at least reported two occasions during which he retreated for medical attention overseas during the period.
And every effort was made to cloak that in secrecy contrary to what should be expected of a public figure such as the President of a country. There was elevated expectation that Nigeria will at least fare better under his watch having regards to the place we were taking off from and the antecedents of the President. His performance in Lagos despite the report of subsisting state capture preceded him as he is considered as a strategist.
The President has also been in the race for the Presidency for some years now and therefore there was the expectation that he had a vision of the country he would like to leave behind and therefore ready to hit the ground running. But has that been the experience with our ‘Emi lokan’? The first shocker was as the President constituted his cabinet. There were high expectations that Tinubu would burnish his credentials of a good headhunter as probably happened during his Lagos outing. But what did we see?
The cabinet was populated with politicians with a sprinkling of professionals. There is no doubt that the President has to settle some political IOUs but we saw that the President was groping in the dark as the appointments were made. There was so much demonstration of lack of preparedness contrary to wide expectations. Take the case of the lady appointee from Kano State that was dropped as she was waiting for Senate confirmation! But for a handful of some appointees who were with the President during his tenure as governor of Lagos State, the outlook of the entire scenario is lacklustre.
The President even struggled to beat the deadline for the composition of his cabinet! And in spite of the promise of the President to fight corruption, the cankerworm was rife in his administration. See the case of the Minister for Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Beta Edu, who has been on suspension for months now because of the alleged offense of the payment of government’s money into private accounts reeking of the suspicion of an attempt to divert public funds. We still do not have closure on that matter even as it is certain that there is no way she will return to the cabinet.
The National Assembly was accused of budget padding which resulted in the suspension of Senator Ningi from Bauchi State. But the big elephant in the house was the pronouncement by Mr. President during his inaugural speech: “subsidy is gone!” This announcement it later turned out was made ex tempore! It was not in the text of the speech. And since this announcement was made out of sync and therefore not properly sequenced, there was immediately confusion in the land as the price of pump price of fuel escalated overnight from under N200 to a litre to almost N800 in a jiffy.
All hell was let loose in the land as the inflationary spiral was stoked and prices were beginning to change on a daily basis reminiscent of what has happened in some Latin America countries as well as some African countries. Hunger for once became an issue in the land and with hunger, protests and disruptions which are bed fellows ensued. It is good that wise counsel prevailed and a stop was put on the escalating prices. The pump price has for now remained at an elevated price of N610 per litre with of course subsidy returned never mind the fact that we would prefer to live in denial as we lie to ourselves in this respect.
To Be Continued…