Tony Abolo
As I was contemplating both the title and content of this article, the twin cancerous problems of Nigeria got a surgery from an unanticipated source. As rational and patriotic Nigerians worry about how to move the Country forward, it has become clear that President Bola Tinubu and FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike are part of the seemingly intractable problems of Nigeria.
Tinubu is fixated on his lifelong ambition to be a life president with the rofo-rofo aid of Wike, an unrelenting enfant terrible. How can the nation make progress with one man forever thinking only about his inordinate ambition to return in 2027 and then go on to beat the records of Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Paul Biya of Cameroon, who have tied their umbilical cords to the commonwealth of their respective Countries as life predicaments.
Tinubu comforts the people and humours himself even with failed governance and is forever telling the people that things would soon get better. For how long can we endure merely the seasons of elections only to forever be in the cusp of elections and in between, there no governance in any shape or form?
He loves to be deceived by his sycophants who tell him that his utterances, far from being policy statements and positions are working. And as far as he is concerned, why not? They distribute and redistribute national medals and awards like the GCFR and CFR in a capricious way to the least deserving of such honors. Palliatives packaged as “gifts” or “programmes” are forever schemed to assuage the undiscerning.
Take NELFUND for instance. What is that in aid of? Universities, students, parents or the education system? Whatever happened to bursaries and scholarships which had structures honed steadily from the past? What about jerking up the pay, “allawee”, of corps members. At some point, you needed to get them set to vote in 2027? What about giving Federal and Supreme Court judges a 300% pay raise when it is not being done across the judiciary or throughout the Federal Civil service? Was it all for a job well done or in anticipation for a future endeavour? Oh, lest I forget, there is a youth conference which is intended to distract the youths for 30 days in a talk-shop that would produce nothing, but nonetheless stuff the future young 2027 voters with enough “grease” to make them see.
See what? A saviour? Whatever happened to the 2014 National Conference Report, Decisions and Recommendations? Who but Tinubu needs a 30-day uninformed and unreliable youth inputs into his agenda. For him, anything and everything can stop, while the 2027 agenda and the post 2031 years are the main drive. Are we being served? Does he care? At a time the government needs every revenue it can collect, VAT and other taxes on 67 or so items are being relaxed. And while these are being relaxed, is it that we forget the twin evil of foreign exchange merger and fuel subsidy removal?
But the genie is out of the bottle. Inflation is raging. VAT relaxation is merely a panic measure for want of an organized economic management. Like the eternal rice, corn, guinea corn palliatives, nothing can ease the inflation rate that exploded with “fuel subsidy gone.” And unless every recklessness that proceeded from it and the unrelenting profligacy that accompanied it are checked, the fiery storm will not abate. And unless the President unties his personal estate from the national economy or his raw ambition that has nothing to do with our lives, nothing will save Nigeria.
On the sidelines are all the shenanigans. Of what use is the new Ministry of Livestock, a duplication of schedules with the Ministry of Agriculture and Veterinary Services? If you ask anyone who should know, of what use is a new/old National Anthem, purchase of SUV’s worth N600 million each for parliamentarians, renewal of Dodan Barracks, a reconstruction of VP’s residence at N21 billion, a N10 billion yacht, a N150 billion presidential aircraft…. all these at a time when Nigerians are hungry, poor and angry? Can anyone say that President Tinubu does not exactly know the dangerous place he is putting not only Nigerians but himself as well?
Egged on by his impunity, Abdullahi Ganduje, the National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress, is in the know of the drama of two Emirs in Kano, an incendiary fire being set for 2027; the priming of his man Friday to erect deadly political “structures” in Rivers State in order to deliver the state in 2027. This was after having achieved their nefarious aim of installing two “unwanted babies” in Edo State through a rigged election.
Now the coup de grace for Nigerians. Fubara the needlessly embattled Governor of Rivers State, buffeted on all sides by a narcissistic and a megalomaniac Nyesom Wike. Out of the blue, deftly and silently, he puts a knife into the heart of Tinubu’s plan to “own Rivers State” and into the jugular of Nyesom Wike whose war cry is the “structure” in Rivers State. What Nigerians have been praying for, a deliverance from the unending destabilizing ambition of Tinubu towards 2027 and the nuisance of Nyesom Wike was delivered to us on a platter on 5th October 2024. Two cancerous problems solved with a local government election held in Rivers state where APP won 22 out of 23 Local Government Councils. As it stands, where is PDP? And where are Nyesom Wike and his unending “structure” cry and his vacillation dribbles between his two legged race, with one in APC and another in PDP?
How on earth can the President tolerate former Governor Wike in destabilizing his home state without cause and won’t allow Kano to stabilize and who seems to have permitted the destabilization of the peace and progress of Edo State and now actively seeks to use the same template to destabilize Ondo and Anambra forthcoming elections? Like we say in pidgin, no be juju be dat?
Where does Tinubu stand with his grand design? Have you seen where a Federal court gives a judgment over and above a Supreme Court except in a lawless country like ours? Where do INEC and Police collude with a ruling party to breach law and order as just happened in Rivers State?
It is time to rewrite the rubrics of the cannons of order in the army and the police. How can the old colonial order still be in the books where the Crown is above the people? Where is sovereignty? Tinubu is a Nigerian, a Nigerian President under the law. The police and the army are to be subject to the people; to the sovereignty of the people, and not subservient to one man and one man’s ambition and dictates.
Sovereignty belongs to the people. It is time we returned to law and order. Wike has overplayed his hands and Tinubu who relied on Wike for a 2027 “under his arm”, has been outplayed. He needs to redraw his plans apart from the onslaught of the opposition, Kano and other angry Nigerians.
The surgery as performed by Governor Fubara has gotten Nigerians, health and peace. Democracy belongs to the people. The best blow to the “invincible” Goliaths has been delivered, Rivers will never return to the cancer of slavery. Nor Nigeria!!!!
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