Nigeria has had an unbroken democratic transition for 24 years with successive Presidents democratically elected. Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Jagaban of Nigeria (and soon, Africa) and a former Governor of Lagos State, is the 16th President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The Ruling political party, All Progressives Congress has now attained 3 consecutive terms as the ruling party in Nigeria. PDP had only four but too much pride and mis-management of the nation’s resources saw it lose in 2015 to the APC and former President Buhari.
It has been a case of mixed feelings for Nigerians during the last 8 years of Buhari. Most Nigerians will attest to the fact that the year 2015 was the best year during the presidency of Buhari, because after 2015 everything in the country, security, economy and corruption worsened and Nigerians were made to go through a long 8 years just to survive. I congratulate every Nigerian that survived the last eight years of the last administration. The naira suffered unmitigated bashing and fatal injuries against foreign currencies and it is now about N750 to one United States’ dollar. Food prices increased more than 300% in the last eight years. Thousands of lives were needlessly lost as a result of increase in insecurity. Kidnapping became routine while unbridled corruption was left un-checked. Former State Governors convicted for looting their States’ treasuries were pardoned by President Buhari and told to go home with the loots. All these errors in governance culminated in the Japa syndrome because the youths that constitute a major demographic in the country no longer feel that they have any future in the country.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will be inheriting a very damaged and mis-managed country. A once great country in Africa is no longer respected by small African Countries. A country that has been pushed into a N60 trillion naira debt. There isserious and urgent work to do to bring back Nigeria’s greatness and return it to its pride of place in the comity of Nations.
It is therefore heartwarming news that the two major conduits for corruption, fuel subsidy and the dual exchange rate will be phased out. President Tinubu has to hit the ground running. He does not need more than 2 weeks to form his cabinet and make other critical appointments. Nigeria should no longer be used as an experiment where obviously incompetent persons (who can hardly manage a satchel-water factory) are appointed to head Ministries and agencies they know nothing about. A country of more than 210 million Nigerians can never be lacking in competent hands. President Tinubu must replicate on the national space the developmental strides he achieved in Lagos State.
The thorny issue of resource control must be re-visited and closed out. In a federation like Nigeria, we cannot have States that contribute nothing to the nation’s treasury but every month look forward to collecting money from Abuja. That will be enthroning laziness and incompetence as statecraft. Also, a centralized policing system is an un-mitigated contradiction in a federal system of government. A country with more than 250 ethnic groups cannot be policed by one man sitting in Abuja. Each State must be allowed to grow at its own pace with its own resources and provide internal security for its own people.
President Tinubu must also de-commercialize and de-monetize politics in Nigeria so that only patriots, not thieves and persons of dubious characters, will find their way into public offices. The craze for foreign luxury items must stop if we must save the naira. President Tinubu must save the economy by encouraging local productions and prohibit the importation of items that Nigerians can produce. We must grow our productive sectors to create jobs for the teeming un-employed youths to halt the japa syndrome.
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