By Steve Osuji
TURNING AND TURNING:…This column suffered ennui, depressing ennui. For a platform designed to serve as an observatory for the nascent Nigeria’s presidency, the horizon remained static and unchanging. From inception on May 29th up until even now, nothing seems to change for good in Bola Tinubu’s Nigeria.
Not conceptually, not contextually; no strategic initiatives and fresh options. No new think. No new thought. No direction. No directive. What we see from the observatory are things turning and turning in the widening gyre ( apologies to W.B. Yeats “The Second Coming”).
This column soon found itself making the same observations weekly and saying the same thing, sometimes in the same words and phrases. Nothing eviscerates a columnist more than dwelling on the same issue over and over.
No better way to kill a columnist. One gets dizzy when everything is turning but nothing is moving.
The point here is that the Bola Tinubu Presidency died on arrival. But the greater tragedy for Nigeria and Nigerians is that the president doesn’t know it and majority of Nigerians haven’t come to terms with this fact.
For emphasis, here’s the bitter truth again: THE TINUBU PRESIDENCY DIED ON ARRIVAL. Another bitter truth is that it’s not gonna be able to resurrect. So we are in for four years of bombast, blustery and propaganda. Four year of mere activities and empty talk – a state of active inertia if you like.
These four years, we shall see a person bearing ‘president’ but he’s not presiding for the people. We shall see ministers ministering only over their enormous loot. Our governors we always knew, only govern their vast accumulation. Nigeria’s government doesn’t work for Nigeria anymore. Government officials only work for themselves these days.
A MAN WITHOUT A MIDDLE: The greatest worry about Tinubu is that he’s a man with neither a philosophy nor ideological leaning. Though one would love to be corrected here by those who may know, the president is not possessed of any high values or abiding vision. He is not known to have professed any high-minded thoughts or views about the human family. You couldn’t be a leader of this magnitude without standing for something. But some would say President Tinubu passion is obviously about lucre and cash and wealth and ready money. Some say he’s more akin to Plutus and mammon meshed into one.
This image of course, derives from the notion that the president has managed to lay a stake to perhaps a quartile of Lagos State which he has held by the jugular since 1999.
Whatever the case may be, it is said that you don’t learn to use the left hand at old age. You are either public spirited or not. You are either humane or you fake it. Some can’t even make believe it. This explains why Tinubu would pick mainly his former backroom boys and old running dogs as his key staff, advisors and strategic appointees. When he ran out of this kind, he preferred narrow ethnic referrals.
Because Tinubu didn’t have a universal picture of leadership nor nationalistic ethos, all he seemed to care about was how to hold down the milk cow for exclusive milking, not how to expand the ranch for abundant flow of milk for all. You still wonder why one man would pocket national finance and economy, the central bank, revenues service, Customs, and oil and gas. He also has the police, the army, anti-graft agency, plus the judiciary. The point here is to grab the state and fit it under your scrotum; not to grab and grow it. This speaks to those who crow about benevolent dictatorship. They forget that without principles and higher ideals, dictatorship is what it is – hell. This is why Nigeria has descended into hell today – we have a civilian dictatorship.
Appointment of lieutenants is a pointer to the quality and character or a leader. While President Buhari gathered nondescript and trashy aides as cabinet members, Tinubu got descript ones. People who are evidently inept, career criminals, dung beetles and money grubs are in the majority in Tinubu’s cabinet. They are the core of this government.
Hitherto, Presidents in raising cabinets, would reach out to the best from across the country and beyond. This time, especially since the APC era, they pick their PAs, their cronies and their kinsmen. In that other.
Even the military boys never descended this low. President Ibrahim Babangida had arch technocrats like Chu Okongwu, Olu Falae, Idika Kalu, Aboyade Cole, Tam David West, among others. He reached out to find the best from every corner if the country.
Sani Abacha had Michael Ani while Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan went out to recruit the very best of Nigeria. Their first consideration was the best men and women for the job not their best cronies. This is how the Ngozi Okonjo-Iwealas, Akinwunmi Adesinas, Ifueko Omoiguis and Segun Agangas, to name a few came on board. Hardly anyone in today’s cabinet can compare with the above-mentioned.
WHEN MISADVENTURE BECOMES REFORM: with a korope presidency that lacks stature and prescience this government is hanging on the the line to dry. Malevolent policies are being presented as reform actions. From yanking off phantom fuel subsidies to the flotation of baseless naira; from reinstating licentious foreign trade to exponential hike in school fees and taxes, etc. All these are considered to be economic reforms.
Eight months on, the Tinubu administration is still a void. Naira has collapsed, inflation rages on, kidnappers threaten even Aso Rock, ‘slaughteration’ is the order in Plateau State, corruption has won the battle and even Aso Rock stinks to high heavens. The only thing happening is that our president has sneaked out to Paris to enjoy the best of medical examination at our expense.
Back to the Korope analogy: korope is the rabbit-like public commuter bus in use in Lagos, Owerri and other cities of Nigeria. The rickshaw is of course the good old tricycle. It was the image of India’s acute poverty those days. Until about a decade ago, Nigerians never commuted with wretched vehicles and cycles prevalent today. Korope, tricycle and bikes as mass transit are symptomatic of Nigeria’s growing poverty and the wretchedness of the people. Korope is a redux. Korope commute is a debasement of the Nigerian persona…
But the graver tragedy is that a Korope president doesn’t understand the import of the Korope imagery.
Feedback: steve.osuji@gmail.com
OSUJISTEVE/25.01.25