IN their heart of hearts even the most ardent supporters of Nigeria’s president know that Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu is contemptuous of Nigerians. But in fairness to him, his contempt for the people did not just manifest after he was controversially and surreptitiously awarded the presidential election by the corrupt and inept ‘Independent’ National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the dead of the night on March 1, 2023.
Tinubu was a two-term governor of Lagos state from 1999-2007. At that time he was ruthless and manipulative. The only person that mattered to him then, and now, was himself. His manipulative nature and self -centredness can be attested to by a faction of Afenifere, the umbrella Yoruba sociocultural-cum political organisation. For his ruthlessness, those who have had to cross his path in his decades – long pursuit of his political and economic ambitions (which by the way cannot be separated), including survivors of the families of his rivals, have a tonne of tales to tell. They are not palatable stories. If Afenifere is today fractionalised it is down to the ruthlessness and selfishness of one man.
In the preceding paragraph we said that Tinubu ruled Lagos state for eight years. No. We were wrong. Until he was created as Nigeria’s president last year, Tinubu remained the de facto governor of Lagos. He still is. He is like the animal called ikiri among Ndigbo. Once this animal has its hands on a prey or its mouth in a cookie jar, it will never let go. Tinubu does not let go. Former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, alluded to this avaricious nature of Tinubu in his press statement last week. Atiku named two companies which have long been associated with the president – Alpha Beta and Primero – which he alleged constituted direct financial pipelines from the coffers of Lagos state government to an individual’s bank account.
Atiku had alleged in a press release that “Nigeria is rapidly transforming into a government of Tinubu, by Tinubu, and for Tinubu”, and that the “future of Nigerians has been effectively mortgaged to President Bola Tinubu, his family, and associates“, so much so that even when Tinubu leaves office, it will be nearly impossible to break the shackles. He alleged that: “Just as Alpha Beta, Primero, and others act as Tinubu’s proxies in Lagos, managing critical sectors and generating revenues for him, and his family, he has begun to replicate this at the federal level”. The former vice president spoke in the wake of the shenanigans between the state oil corporation, NNPCL, its retail arm and a private firm, OVH. Wale Tinubu’s Oando is alleged to own 49% of OVH. Wale Tinubu is reportedly a cousin to Bola Tinubu who, in addition to being Nigeria’s president, is also the country’s petroleum resources minister. NNPCL has refuted the linkage.
Whether the mounting allegations of governance malpractices against Tinubu are true or not, it has to be noted that the tell-tale signs of the proclivity of the man have been in the public domain for at least 25 years. The fear of a section of the population that the president will be tempted or disposed to making Nigeria a bigger specimen of Lagos was not diminished by the boasting of Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu, the president’s wife in 2023, to the effect that her family had been so blessed materially and financially that they would have no need to live off the paltry resources of Nigeria. Within 14 months her boasting which she reportedly made on the altar of God, a merciful Father and a consuming fire, has turned out not to be true. Oluremi Tinubu is said to be a pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God.
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Tinubu’s contempt for Nigerians started the very day he took his oath of office and oath of allegiance. Before that day actually. Right on the podium at the Eagle Square in Abuja on May 29, 2023, the president decreed the immediate scrapping of petrol subsidy. By the time he made this weighty declaration, his regime as personified by a Cabinet was not in place. There was no evidence that he consulted anybody including stakeholders in that sector of the economy. His rationalisation was that the petrol subsidy would bankrupt the country, and that his rivals to the presidency had promised to do the same during the campaigns. Both were lies because the regime is currently paying more for petrol subsidy, and the presidential candidates may have promised to remove petrol subsidy but there was no unanimity on how to do it. Tinubu took that action not because he did not know the implications and dire consequences of the move. He knew but he proceeded to do it anyway because he holds Nigerians in disdain. He probably enjoys seeing faces contorted in pain. What a pervert! This same man had in January 2012, eleven years prior, warned President Goodluck Jonathan, in an open letter, of the inevitable deleterious effects of subsidy removal. He was then the leader of the opposition party. The very things he predicted would happen in 2012 if Jonathan scrapped petrol subsidy happened in 2023 when he went against his own counsel- prices spiked, the economy nose-dived, inflation rose, poverty heightened and despondency spread.
His statement of ‘subsidy is gone’ was made in May of 2023. The very next month, in June, he devalued the Naira, and left the value of the national currency to the so-called free market forces. Again, his rationalisation was that the federal government could no longer afford to defend the Naira. Did this sound similar to his excuse for petrol subsidy removal? Tinubu yet displayed a disdain for Nigerians, lack of empathy, unconcern for the privations citizens were grappling with on account of petrol subsidy removal, and little knowledge of basic economics. Nigeria virtually exports nothing of value except crude oil over which it has no control of the price in the international market. Tinubu prides himself as an accountant with global clout but failed to realise that the massive devaluation of the national currency would only be more beneficial if the country was a net exporter of goods and services. Naira devaluation succeeded only in creating employment abroad, driving remnants of manufacturers away, forcing domestic producers to close shop, and exacerbating the import of inflation. The tragedy is that Nigeria is trapped.
And to imagine that in spite of the dizzyingly devaluation of the Naira, the central bank is still defending the currency. The Tinubu regime has continued with the Muhammadu Buhari style of using the foreign reserves and hot money (foreign portfolio investments) to prop up the value of the Naira. Nigerians now scoff whenever the government boasts about the accression to the reserves because they know that at any point in time a significant portion of the reserves is encumbered. In barely one year the exchange rate of the Naira to the dollar has plummeted from about N700/$1 to over N1’600/$1. And we have not seen the end of it. The situation is worse in the petrol subsidy sector. Before Tinubu, about N3 trillion Naira was claimed as subsidy in one year. In 2024 which will be the one full year under Tinubu after discounting May – December 2023, the central bank is projecting that about N5 trillion would be expended on the same subsidy that was scrapped last year.
But the projected expenditures on the so-called subsidy on petrol is the least of the problems facing Nigerians. The greater concern is that while the erstwhile subsidy regime was riddled with brazen corruption, the extant government has further made its administration opaque. For a start, there was no provision for subsidy in the 2024 national budget. However, subsidies have been incurred since January, indeed since the second half of 2023. Presently, petrol is scarce in many parts of the country. This was supposed to be one of the ills that the regime said that the removal of subsidy will cure. But in the fifteen months since petrol subsidy was supposedly yanked off, the country has suffered at least four bouts of scarcity.
One litre of petrol currently sells for anything between N700 and N1’200 in parts of the country. In some locations one litre of petrol costs as much as N2000. But the official price ranges from between N620-N750 per litre. However, as at the last count the landing cost of the product was put at about N1’150. So going by the official selling price and the reported landing price there’s a price difference of about 50%. In other words, the proclamation last year that subsidy was gone was a lie. The NNPCL which is a cesspit of corruption has said it is absorbing the difference and that it was not paying any marketer any kobo for subsidy. What this means is that NNPCL is the sole importer of petrol; it determines the quantity it imports; it is responsible for determining the number of litres we consume in the country; and, it calculates the amount of subsidy per litre. On this issue NNPCL is a monopoly. But who will query an agency which reports to President Tinubu who doubles as the petroleum resources minister. Some other Nigerian presidents appointed oil ministers but not Buhari, and so far not Tinubu. If this arrangement under the successive regimes of the All Progressives Congress (APC) does not mirror corruption, then it will be hard to find what does.
*Next week we’ll continue this interrogation with a different headline highlighting political malpractices and governance malfeasance.
AUTHOR: UGO ONUOHA
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