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Nigeria has become a nation of the absurd. The only thing that is certain in Nigeria today is uncertainty itself. An Azerbaijan plane carrying about 67 persons crashed in Kazakhstan, leaving 38 persons dead with 29 survivors. The leader of Azerbaijan declared a day of national mourning to respect the souls of the dead. In Nigeria, about 70 persons died during last week in the East, West, and North from stampedes, in desperate struggle for food, and N5,000.00 ($3). This desperate hunger was caused by the ill-timed, and ill-conceived removal of fuel subsidy, and devaluation of naira respectively by Tinubu. Ten persons died in Sokoto from an air force attack on a suspected lakurawa terrorists hideout which many allege that innocent victims were involved. Families, on their way home to Christmas, in Anambra State, including a lawmaker, were kidnapped and forced into the forest. In Gombe, 22 persons were injured as vehicle ploughed into Christmas procession, and many other tragedies around the country. In all these unfortunate disasters, President Tinubu emphatically declared in his first belated presidential chat on 23rd December, 2024, that he had no regrets for all the decisions that brought us this low, and consequently scored himself excellent. 2025 is lurking around the corner and the uncertainty going into it is palpable.
The first alarm citizens received about 2025 is in the fairy tale budget presented by the Tinubu’s regime in December, 2024, which has taken us back many years behind on the timely presentation of budgets in Nigeria. President Buhari presented his budgets between August to September and returned us to one year budget cycle between 1st January to 31st December, yearly. This government has taken us back to the implementation of dual budgets, probably all year round. Unfortunately, in Tinubu’s regime, there has been duality of undesirable issues together even unto the application of dual naira policy which has resulted in Nigerians using two different naira currencies and reached an unprecedented level of incompetence that necessitated Nigerians to buy naira with naira owing to the unavailability of physical naira cash.
In Tinubu’s 2025 budget, inflation rate was projected to be around 15%, which is a far cry from the present 34% inflation rate. This government seemed to believe that once a wish is proclaimed, it becomes, or people will believe it to become a reality. This is simply foisting a case of renewed hopelessness on the people. No Nigerian should believe this utopic promise in order to maintain his/her mental health. In simple terms, projecting inflation rate to crash down to 15% in 2025 from the 34% now is like saying that a 50kg bag of rice that is N100,000.00 in 2024 will cost about N44,000.00 in 2025. It is either the budget estimators are ignorant of the economic situation of the country today, or they are simply mischievous.
For the avoidance of doubt, what we are suffering in Nigeria today is not demand-pull inflation, it’s cost of production induced inflation. This occurs when the factors of production are obtained by producers at a very high cost resulting in the high cost of their finished product. Ordinarily, in economics, when demand decreases, price will fall because many goods will be chasing fewer cash. Competition means that whichever company does not reduce its price will not sell. But this is when we have demand pull inflation. If, on the other hand, the producers are producing at a very high cost and the demand decreases, the price would still not come down because the producers can not sell below their cost price. Any attempt to sell below their cost price will lead to the death of the businesses as the businesses will end up making huge unsustainable losses which will end in their bankruptcy.
This is why Nigeria has become the burial ground for medium and small scale enterprises and this is why foreign companies in Nigeria are divesting to other countries where the factors of production are easier and cheaper to obtain. Projecting, therefore, that the inflation rate will drop to 15% in 2025 when the cost of production is even rising due to increased lack of power, increased wages and salary, increased transportation cost, frequent policy flip-flops, multiple charges, high interest rate, insecurity, increased tax in vat (if passed by the National Assembly as presented, God forbid), etc, is at best an attempt to con and hoodwink Nigerians. The estimated inflation rate next year should, if the economy performs at its optimum best, be between 25% to 30%. But if the economy continues to witness the continued incompetence of this regime, it may even become the same or worse than it is today. Let critics of this assertion hold their breath and fact check us by the end of 2025. This unrealistic budget estimate has simply compounded the uncertainty about the economic outlook in 2025 in Nigeria.
The political uncertainty is even worse. The three major political parties in Nigeria today are the All Progressives Congress (APC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and the Labour Party (LP). It is concerning that none of the national executives of these political parties emerged from the will of the members of the political parties. Whereas APC and PDP are governed by appointed executives, the LP executives are an imposition of the court. The LP is even worse because it has no elected ward, local, and state executives at all levels. Whoever is claiming to be the National Chairman of LP is holding the skeleton of dried bones. Unless there’s a prophet that can prophesy that the dried bones shall rise again, the LP is under the hands of its undertakers having been rejected by every responsible member of LP.
The PDP has postponed to infinity the conduct of its National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting just because some powerful forces within the party who are loyal to the APC government want to retain the existing appointed national executives who have become servants of the ruling party. The executives of the PDP may rank the first in the world who backed the defection of its members to the ruling party. Despite swearing to an affidavit in court and openly announcing their defection publicly, the incumbent appointed national executives of the party went to court through their legal advisers to seek soft landing for the defected members so they do not lose their seats. They even lied openly in court that they didn’t defect when they realised the danger it posed for their seats, yet the incumbent executives still offered them every legal assistance to sustain such lies. The effect of this on PDP is that it lost its bite to be an effective opposition to APC and the general effect of the emasculation of the opposition is that the members of the opposition in the legislature have become the “o yes” members of the National Assembly. Executive bills are passed before they even land at the floor of the assembly and any nominated officer by the President is asked to bow and go, even if he is a card carrying member of APC nominated by the President to become a member of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
APC members are increasingly becoming restive with the poor performance of their government especially in areas of the economy and the lopsidedness of its appointments. However, APC can only pay for the consequences of their actions if the opposition find a way to form a formidable platform to confront the APC in 2027. For now, how the ruling party and the opposition parties will fare, starting from 2025, when this government would clock two years in office is uncertain and only time will tell.
On the international level, the re-election of Donald Trump as the most powerful person on earth has created the greatest uncertainty in international relations in 2025. Even before being sworn in, he has caused international uproar by his comments that suggest international intrusion into the sovereignty of other countries. He suggested taking the Panama canal from Panama, and grabbing the Greenland from Denmark and advising Canada to agree to become the 51st State of United States of America. He is not favourably disposed to continue assisting Ukraine against Russia as the present President Biden does. I wonder how people think they can do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. Trump’s first coming was marred by chaos and fury in the White House and it is obvious that his second coming might even be more challenging. 2025 is really pregnant and everyone must pray that it should give birth to a bouncing baby not a monster.
