Open letter to the president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu – II

The President of the Federal Government of Nigeria,

Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Your Excellency,

OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT OF NIGERIA, ALHAJI BOLA AHMED TINUBU – II

I hereby congratulate you again for some of the actions taken since your assumption of office as the President. However, the actions of other Government Departments need to be integrated with those of Federal Government to serve as a path of real growth and development without negative distracting forces?

I wish to recall my first open letter then addressed to President-Elect, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu (BAT). It was published by: The Nation Newspaper Online, 12 May, 2023; The Nigerian Tribune Online, 13 May, 2023; The Hope Newspaper in print, 29 May, 2023. Therein I made a few suggestions which I think should help the present administration to move the nation to a level that is better than those of the “Developed Nations” of the third world. The key issues among them are:

Monitoring the achievements against the laid-down plans with stated goals and strategies,through the regular reports in data, charts and maps, as reports by the Minister of Strategic Planning, to the President and Ministers themselves, is an excellent reminder of the achievements vis-a-vis the target goals intended as stated in my first letter. A Picture is worth a thousand words. The Ministries will then continually be using them as self-appraisal against the STRATEGIES and the SMART GOALs that they agreed to achieve. The laid-down strategic plan should then serve as effective Road Map to significant achievement for the government and a paradigm progress for the nation. It should serve as “A Road Map to Nation Building.”

From the strategies could also be derived some (not all required) Institutional Frameworks which may transcend tribal and ethnic boundaries.

The actions announced by the president, with the exception of the Palliatives and the attempted war on Niger, are good. The palliatives need to be modified to reach the poor and so that it is not also hijacked by any group, otherwise, it will not alleviate the problem of removal of petroleum subsidy. As I said in my first letter we have always had good plans but lack the HOW and the WILL to implement them well accordingly as planned. A well-thought out plan is only as good as implemented. This is why I still repeat themonitoring stated in my first letter.

Already some Government Departments, such as Commercial banks and Immigration, to name a few, recently seized, rather unduly, the opportunity of subsidy removal to increase charges on some of their operations. Do they need fuel to run the ATM machines? All these will, not only remove the effect of any measures that the government puts or intend to put in place to alleviate the effect of subsidy removal. They also have the combined effect of increased inflation. Government Departments and Agencies seem to be working at cross purposes to that of Government. NO integration. Effect is increased Inflation and economic hardship to people which we are witnessing now.

Please recall that as a result of the CBN Naira re-design policy and the method of its application: (1) The economy nose-dived.

(2) Many people lost their lives in the execution of the policy as a result of the ambition of one man or a few people against the state. Today, where are the new notes printed or colored? The notes should by now be regularly dispensed more than the old notes at the commercial banks if they are readily available.

Could Plea Bargain serve as appropriate reward or compensation for the lives lost as a result of his actions? Could he be prosecuted for Man Slaughter? “Measure for Measure” will serve as deterrent to such future similar actions.

Commercial Banks. The next step in the Reform should be at the commercial banks. Governmentshould ensure that the CBN carries out its responsibilities of controlling the banks, whichincludes the control of bank unreasonable charges on depositors’ accounts that make depositors to be overcharged. Double charges for transfers for the same transaction; Card maintenance charges three times a year for ATM card already paid for on issue should be eliminated etc. All these have over-burdened depositors. The banks have already increased charges on every withdrawal at ATM as a result of petrol subsidy removal. Nigerians are helpless and tired, being used to impunity every time. The CBN seems to have abandoned its responsibility of checking the excesses of commercial banks.

I wish to repeat here that the banking sector should be restructured with appropriate guidelines to be monitored and offending banks given appropriate sanctions which serve as deterrent to future similar actions.

Boko haram and banditry: We have the wars on Boko haram and Banditry to contend with. We should as a matter of compulsion, not just necessity, exercise our energies to face these wars first. Until we have successfully exterminated these wars in Nigeria, we cannot have food security or peace.

Loans to Agriculture and Agricultural Processing should not be more than 2%, otherwise payback may be impossible. Agriculture and Agricultural Processing should be given a boost through grants or less than 2% loan interest. Developed countries such as Britain and US understand the dynamics of food production and availability vis-a-vis the health of the nation. Britain sometimes gives loan for agriculture at 0.2% while US gives subsidies on agriculture. They know that a nation that cannot feed her citizens is a poor nation. It may lead to ill-health and other accompanying problems.  Many years ago, Japan started producing rice at a cost which was four times the cost of importing it from Thailand. They subsidized the cost to make it available to their people. Their desire was for their farmers to develop and master the technology of rice production. Instruction to banks, which prefer high interests, to merely give single digit loan interest may only yield 9% interest which is too high for agriculture.  

Nigeria should not saddle itself with resolution of the coup in Niger. Africa and African nations should come together to remove the yoke of Western imperialism, which is what the coupists in Niger and the other Francophone countries seem to be agitating for. There should be no war against Niger Republic. Must we add another problem to those we are currently facing: the wars against Boko haram and Banditry? There should be no war on any African country by any African nation. Dialogue should be the approach to any regional problem. There should be Non-alignment with either the West or Eastern Block. We need economic freedom not alignment.

Akinbobola Akinfe.
Araromi-Obu, Odigbo Local Government.

Phone: 07063617155.

Email: samakinfe@yahoo.com