By Tony Abolo
Nigerians have all after 3½ years seen what a man who said he used over 20 years to plan an ambition to be a President of Nigeria has thrown at us. After his shout of “Emil okan” and offering delegates a minimum of $30,000 dollars each, now what do we see? – A man who is fixated on his self, family and serfs who worship at his feet and want nothing else but a Presidency of Tinubu either to last another four years or perhaps forever.
3½ years after he was sworn in, in May 29th 2023, we see a narcissist of the worst kind, a man whose sole interest is self, a delusional self, that thanks, as he claims, to have come to correct all the errors of 63 years of Nigeria’s past leaderships.
A man who has come to serve external interests, which preserves him, in any case; the interests of America, because of he being a Special American Asset and France, as this helps him transact billion naira business alongside his business cahoot, Gilbert Chagoury.
Over 19 million Nigerians who have sunk into poverty in the last 3½ years cannot fathom the purpose of a Tinubu Presidency. This excludes the more millions, in the majority in the Northern part of Nigeria who experience perennial insecurity, constant hunger, famine, no more farming livelihoods and you may add on the millions in other parts of Nigeria whose budgets neither cover food, school fees, transportation and basic survival needs.
It rankles then to read that the President travelled to Mecca for UMRAH, the lesser Hajj, to pray for Nigeria’s prosperity and peace. This is the height of being very delusional.
What were the assignments and powers of a President? So two days or so of prayers which could not be said in Nigeria, but in faraway Mecca, would bring the succor and relief to the long suffering Nigerians?
As if going to Mecca to pray is not a joke taken too far, on the eve of his departure, he caused to be released a long epistle why he keeps borrowing and borrowing, from external sources without any restraint, nor any sign of prudence and which would bring our level of indebtedness thus far to $200 trillion.
He justifies his actions with the statement that he is borrowing to build infrastructures which his and my grand children would realize were built to ensure a bright and golden future.
What then happens in between our lives and when the grandchildren are of age? Should we all die because our President Tinubu overburdened the nation with a debt overhang?
Is this how Saudi Arabia and Norway built the future for their grandchildren? To be honest all these borrowings are to support his global junketing, luxuries, expenses for politicians, his presidency and his inordinate ambition for a return in 2027.
The Nation is burning with exasperation. There is no care to ameliorate the raging inflation costs in food prices, transportation, and fuel pump price. We cannot see easy roads to travel around on.
From Benin you cannot wing out either to Warri, Auchi, Asaba or Lagos. So how do I believe the debt scam? Are we to wait till 2031 to see what eases? Other nations see their Presidents ease off their daily struggles. Here, it is the politicians who are the ones in ease and comfort.
State Governors claim they receive more allocations since fuel subsidy removal. But the ordinary day to day citizen cannot yet feel any removal benefits.
We hear the foreign reserve is now standing at about $54 billion. What is that to anyone who wants to buy yams, beans and garri just to get by? Otedola, Samad Ahmad, Dangote, Elumelu, Jim Ovia,all may sing the praises of the so called reforms. Why not? They are the beneficiaries of the reforms. It touches their wealth and their businesses.
For the over 200 million Nigerians who eke a living, there is neither governance nor leadership.What compounds our problems is the moral depravity in the security.
How can we say, it is well, the level of corruption everywhere? How did we end up with nearly everyone indicted outside of the Country for one criminal activity or the other, at the helm of leadership and among the political elite of governance?
What examples are being set for the today and the future generations? How could crime indicted persons be the ones who take decisions today? At what point do we attribute the decline in virtue and morals to an incident in lmo where a girl was raped and murdered, last week? Or do we discard young married women who in disgust with the marriages, unalive their young husbands? Is the emptiness at the top and jejune values at the top not circulating?
Looking at the crisis of our values today and the moral morass of society today, it is pertinent to caution that it takes a generation for values to encrust, another generation for those values to percolate and persist and yet another generation to upturn what society may consider wrong values.
So, we can worry deeply about how deep we have gone. It will take two more generations for us to recover. And so it will take another 140 years, another two generations to recover our country, post Tinubu. That is if society doesn’t turn in another direction.
We have to be very conscious of how citizens compose. There are activists, bystanders, cheerleaders, powerful beneficiaries, resisters, and there will be of course, victims.
As the years roll on, no one can accurately predict where and how the dice may roll. Other societies turned round the corners. That was because of their kind of leadership.
We are not even considering the issue of raising leaders at all levels and so we cannot tell what kind of leadership may surface in the future. But it is frightening, if what we see now, hang on for yet a generation.
It took us at least two generations to sink into this cesspit of corruption and inanity; into a set of people who seem unconcerned about how to get themselves out of the cesspool.
We are as a people so unthinking and unconcerned. The majority are about stomach infrastructure and the money and a sickening herd mentality without a recourse as to why and where.
What makes a leadership and the leadership class to turn and make a salvific direction is self-awareness. A self awareness that indicates flaws, errors, and a possible tragic course for a people. In our case, we have a conceited leadership that is not primed for societal benefit.
Without doubt, what we have is about an ethnic victory, an ethnic agenda, an illusory inter ethnic fight for supremacy. This is all playing out as we head out into 2027.I see very little hope that in this leadership, a change is coming. It does not bother to see itself in the mirror as long as its brigands and sycophants are cheering and leading on.
In other climes self awareness moderates and makes a leadership to seek progressive steps and moves in the interest of today and tomorrow societies. Is genuine recovery possible? That may only happen if we have a critical mass with the knowledge, awareness and courage to confront our present disabilities (society and in the political leadership elite class). That is if only we are all genuinely aware of our flawed character and damaged country, by this present leadership. I hope this is not a forlorn hope.
