Nigeria must be restructured in a way that will redress all injustices that have happened since 1963.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is conscious of history. And he wants to dominate it. Without doubt he is about the only leader Nigeria has had that is conscious of his place in history. When he went to Abeokuta, capital city of Ogun State during his campaign for the 2023 election he said it much in an impromptu speech that produced the now popular "Emilokan" political lexicon in Nigeria.
He said forcefully that he wants to be president because he didn't want to be written with history but he wants to write history. He wants a place in the history of Nigeria. Truly he fought with the best of his vigour and money outsmarting former President Muhammadu Buhari who was routing for Mohammed Lawan, the then president of the senate. Despite all odds Tinubu won the primary of his party, APC and went on to launch a very vicious political war machine that gave him the presidency in the midst of deep controversy. The conduct of the elections is controversial but it is now emerging even from opposing quarters that Tinubu won the election. At least the courts gave him the victory.
Tinubu did not waste a split second to launch even ideas that he did not canvass during the campaign. First to go was the oil subsidy. Oil subsidy that had become a cashcow for the many corrupt rentiers in Nigeria and which made the smuggling of Nigeria’s oil to feed the nations in the West Africa sub- region. Galloping petrol prices led to food inflation and high transport costs. Tinubu shouted in another press statement: we cannot fund education and off went education opportunity for many citizens from poor homes. The administration's introduction of interest free loan did not assuage the poor condition of the students in the universities, many of them whose parents cannot cope withdrew from school. There were loud cries but Tinubu stuck to his guns, nothing will change. You don't continue to do the same things in the same way and expect a different outcome, he told a group of senior journalists during the maiden Presidential Media Chat in December. The cries of "ebi npa wa" which translates "we are hungry" in his home state of Lagos where he was governor for eight years and where he has been political godfather for about 24 years now did not deter him to change that policy which has inflicted great pain on the populace. He kept on sympathising with the pains of the people but he stuck to his guns. Tinubu will not cut down the high cost of running his government which Nigerians demanded neither will he cut down on his bloated executive, he has about 51 ministers at the last count. When the journalists that had a chat with him asked him to justify that huge number of ministers in a time of lean economy he did not budge but told them he needed a huge executive.
Tinubu has been labeled "T-pain" for all the pains in the nation by his chief opponent in the 2023 presidential election, Atiku Abubakar but the president remain unfazed. Several strikes by the labour union and one major protest by Nigerians which saw great damage to public properties and the arraingnment of minors in court, the president will still not budge. When the public outcry on the arraignment of the minors became too loud, Tinubu latched on to his policies only ordering the release of the minors. Tinubu's tax reform is raging fire and brimstone dividing the nation in two halves, the North and the South, the North crying foul that the tax reform was skewed against them and threatening that they will not vote for Tinubu in 2027. Despite the hues and cries, the president told a group of senior journalists that the tax reform which is with the legislature has come to stay. The confidence with which Tinubu pursues his reforms has staggered many people. It made Adams Osiomhole, a senator and a member of Tinubu's APC to doubt if Tinubu wanted a second term in office. His tax reform is seen by many as a subtle move to introduce a much desired restructuring into the country, which many especially in the south have argued for so that each federating unit could control its resources like it was in the country's independent constitution of 1963.
Though Tinubu has remained adamant in his economic politicies and though many Nigerians think he is setting the nation in an overdrive, a careful scrutiny of his moves show a great deal of cosmetics, a great deal of perfuctory dealings which lack substance. The main structural imbalance in the country has been left unattended to perhaps because the president thought posing as bold is fearful of the North of the country which has remained so impervious to calls for change and modernization. A video clip is running on the social media which speaks to the hollowness of Tinubu's braggadocio. In the video a senior military officer, most likely talking in a seminar, a white man sat to his right, said the issue of banditry in the Northwest of Nigeria is essentially a political problem that has not been addressed, a political contest between the Hausa and Fulani. He said the Hausa complained that the Fulani are using their cows to trample upon their farms thus destroying their crops while the Fulani complain that when they come to the cities and towns from their usual rural dwellings where they drive their cows from place to place in search of grazing, they are attacked and killed by the Hausa people especially in the markets.
Then came a young Hausa man who has a fair command of the English language and a very fair comprehension of the North's political problem especially between the Hausa and the Fulani. According to him, in the video that was obviously shot in a Lagos market, one could see the Lagos yellow colour on the mini buses as they move on the busy streets that traverse the market, the Fulani only used religion of Islam to deceive the Hausa taking their resources and becoming so rich because of that. He alleged that though the Hausa own the land the Fulani became the rulers and pretended to forge unity through Islam; a unity that never manifested in real terms. He alleged that the Fulani allowed the Hausa to procreate profusely so as to use the number of their population as a political bargaining point. Since democracy is a game of numbers the Fulani has been using the big population of the Hausa to win elections. He complained that the Fulani do not beg on the streets because they are not poor. He alleged that his grandparents told him that the Fulani are unforgiving, a fact he found to be true. He said the Fulani can keep malice for a hundred years. But the Hausa are the beggars because of over-population and poverty; that the Fulani can accomplish their retaliation even if it takes a hundred years. He painted a picture of Fulani as a deceitful tribe while his Hausa tribe is very accommodating and peace loving. A time has come, this very informed young man told the nation through the video for the Hausa to have their land back and also to share in the power both over their cities and in the states and the nation. No Hausa has ever been president in the nation and most of the emirs that rule in the cities and town, he mentioned are Fulani. He wanted that reversed and justice given to the Hausa who have suffered deprivation.
The North is not the only section of the country where this kind of complaints is coming from, it is also in the south. The Ijaws and other tribes in the oil producing areas are no longer ready for what they call "baboons de work, monkey de chop." They are no longer ready for the oil wealth under their soil to be used to develop other areas in the country while their own land suffer in underdevelopment. The Igbo in the Southeast want to be full citizens of the country with full participation as any other tribe in the country. If the county will not guarantee that equality of participation and citizenship they want to be allowed to separate. The Yoruba of the Southwest are saying the same thing. They don't want to be second fiddle in a country they call their own. They are therefore also pressing for separation.
Curious enough for his bold moves and resilience, ThisDay newspaper and Arise Television which the Tinubu camp and now his handlers have branded Tinubu haters have surprised the nation by picking President Tinubu as their Man of the Year. In their citation they spoke to Tinubu's profound policies. But except those political problems highlighted by the young Hausa man is attended to with more boldness, the economic policies cannot succeed. The polical problems must be addressed before any economic reform can work. The fundamental structure of relationship among Nigerians that will guarantee peaceful coexistence must be looked into before the president can be said to be truly bold. Nigeria must be restructured in a way that will redress all injustices that have happened since 1963.
First Published in METRO
***********************
Tunde Akande is both a journalist and pastor. He earned a Master's degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos.
No comments:
Post a Comment