It has been one momentous year of lament, gasps, flounder and blips. Since May 29, 2023, it has been from oh! to ah! among ordinary Nigerians. Everything President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has done in the one year he has been our president has been subsumed in the manner with which his administration has carried on with the nation. To narrow this thought, one can say that everything the Tinubu administration has done in its first year has been buried in the manner through which he removed fuel subsidy. It was harsh, brutish, discomfiting and haphazard. Then, coupled with the fuel subsidy and supply misadventures, Tinubu’s one year has been fraught with many steps that have left Nigerians wondering what really is going on in our government. It has been one year of many actions that have elicited oh!, ah!, oops!, and lordy moments.
This cannot be stressed enough. From the very moment he casually announced that hugely impactful fuel subsidy removal policy during his inaugural address, till today, his ministers and his other aides have been running from pillar to post in search of something or anything to say or do that could assuage the attendant shock.
That announcement and the manner with which it came on May 29, 2023 caught Nigeria unawares. It must have also caught the players in the nation’s oil and allied sectors – legal and illegal – off-guard, like the fart of the harsh king. For his aides and members of his government, it’s the case of ‘our father has done it again and we must own it and find a way to clear the mess’. The Igbo consider the situation in which Tinubu’s government members and officials find themselves in as a transfer of the shame that had been erased from the seriously infirm of their household.
President Tinubu, as has been generally acknowledged, inherited one very bad economy; an economy said to be on its death bed. Of course his great political ally and friend, General Muhammadu Buhari, bequeathed him this economy. As an accountant of repute and a former governor of high renown, he would know what murky economic waters he was plunging into when he said it was his turn to be the president. Besides, he would know also because he was the chief midwife among those who made the birth of the Buhari administration possible. So, what exactly is the excuse of the Tinubu administration?
Our – now dear – General Muhammadu Buhari, whom Tinubu succeeded, did his best to bring our economy to its knees. When he was done dealing with us, he left us with two fundamental warnings. The first warning was that we must brace up because we would miss him after he had gone. Secondly, he warned that when he is gone, we must not disturb him in Daura where he said he would be, otherwise he would leave our Nigeria for us and relocate to his dear Niger Republic.
Now that we have seen the worse side of fate in one year of Tinubu, what more can one say about Buhari and his warnings? And, like the taboo about the male priest not uttering malevolence, Tinubu has refused to see any evil or say any evil about the economy he inherited.
So, Nigerians have been abandoned in oh! and ah! of plain pain while the government continues with its oops and gaffes. And the administration has been brazen in its approach to and continuation of the miasma. If you disagree, listen to the ministers and their achievements!
Tinubu came and exacerbated the problematic economy by his office-the-cuff announcement of end to fuel subsidy. That singular action triggered most of the things his administration has been battling for its first year. It is impossible to extricate our worsening economy from that fuel pricing issue. We should also not forget that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPC) has remained the only entity that has been importing petrol into the country, despite the deregulation of the sector. All the other licensed corporate citizens of our country, who can muster the wherewithal to import and distribute petrol, and thereby ease the supply and pricing pressure, are not able to do so because of some oh!s and ah!s and oops going on in that aspect of our national life. The gods of that sector of our economy must be appeased as the Tinubu government grows further into governance.
So far, there are not many Nigerians who would openly and confidently explain the achievements of President Tinubu in the first year of his first tenure. At best, they are so micro and intangible that we might need a telescope to be able to see them. It’s been more of ‘we will’ than ‘we have’. Today, even as we mark the landmark, a lot of All Progressives Congress (APC) admirers and supporters who started with the administration by wearing the ‘Tinubu cap’ have abandoned their caps. They have jettisoned wearing the branded cap because of the negative public reactions to them. With the ‘Tinubu cap’ they are like endangered species in most parts of the country. They know this and they also know that nearly every attempt by supporters, admirers or even aides to put the Tinubu government in a certain perspective is almost always thwarted by the question: ‘What is the fate of the ordinary Nigerian in the last one year?’
Nigerians have the right to ask the questions even if they are not getting answers. Our lords are too arrogant to answer and are too busy searching for reasonable things to tell us. The questions grew from the assurances the administration itself had given. Nigerians are holding Tinubu and his team against their statements and assertions. They promised to hit the ground running but they hit the ground running in the opposite direction.
For instance, the prevarications on the Coastal Highway aside, Nigerians will remember that failed promises on the repair of our refineries. There were assurances from credible government officials that in December 2023, the Port Harcourt refinery would start operations. This was widely reported in the news. The assurance gained currency on the ground that with Port Harcourt and Dangote refineries, there would be adequate supply of petroleum products that would trigger a reduction in the price of the commodity. Heineken Lokpobiri, one of our ministers of petroleum also gave his assurances. Mr. Mele Kyari, the group managing director of NNPCL appeared before the Senate, he told newsmen that in “two weeks” the refineries would commence operations. The most assured thing about our government’s pronouncements is that they hold promise, but they are never reliable. The reality, however, is that refineries are simply not working as promised by the government. Now, they have shifted the goalposts again and set our sights on July 2024 as the new resumption date. It’s still a promise… mere promise.
For its first anniversary, the Tinubu administration said it would not engage in overt celebrations. Nigerians too know why it is undesirable. They need not patronise us.
Meanwhile, the ministers have been awarding themselves pass marks, speaking like people in an electioneering campaign. They have been giving their administration excellent scores in all the areas of their imaginary achievements. Perhaps, they think that they have won our hearts, but we must tell them that they have said nothing about the socio-economic realities that have left the population in tatters. It is shocking that there are no new things they have said other than ‘sorry, we have only just begun. Oh! Inflation! Ah!’
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and then