It is not only churches that organize harvest and bazaar these days. Since President Bola Tinubu became the President of Nigeria on May 29, 2023, we have been in an unending season of bazaar. Nigeria has been auctioned off. But the proceeds are not meant to favour the over 133 million Nigerians living in multi-dimensional poverty. They are exclusively reserved for the ruling class, their aides, family members, hangers-on and mistresses. For most government officials, there is nothing like offering time anymore. Every day is now blessing time!
The latest blessing time is the ongoing climate change conference, called Conference of Parties (COP28), holding in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) between November 30 and December 12, 2023. This year, out of over 70,000 participants and delegates from over 100 countries, the host country, UAE, has 4,409 participants, the largest at the conference. It is followed by Brazil with 3,081 delegates. Nigeria and China clinched the third position with 1,411 delegates each. This means the number of our delegates surpassed that of big economies like the United States, United Kingdom and Germany.
Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, laboured to offer an explanation. He said the Federal Government only sponsored 422 delegates. These are drawn from ministries, agencies and the National Assembly. The rest, he said, came from non-governmental organisations, civil society organisations, private companies, and the media, among others. “As the biggest economy and most populous country in Africa, with a substantial extractive economy and extensive vulnerability to climate change, Nigeria has a significant stake in climate action, and our active and robust participation at COP is therefore not unwarranted,” he added.
Tales by moonlight! I can understand China sending fairly large number of delegates to Dubai. It has the capacity and resources to do so. But for chronic debtors like Nigeria, the rest of the civilized world will be laughing and wondering if this is what the giant of Africa does with the loans it takes from them.
My worry is that there appears to be no end in sight to this type of profligacy. President Tinubu removed fuel subsidy on the day of his inauguration and urged Nigerians to tighten their belts. From about N185 a litre, fuel price jumped to over N600 a litre. The already traumatized citizens had no energy to even protest. People started walking long distances because the cost of transport skyrocketed. The rate of inflation has been climbing to unbearable levels. Currently, it is 27.33 per cent. Unemployment is at its peak. Fellow citizens have been migrating abroad in droves. Some have become refugees after selling off their property to relocate abroad.
Within this short period that Tinubu has been in the saddle, at least 1,197 Nigerian medical doctors have relocated to the United Kingdom alone. A lot of Nigerians have resorted to local concoctions to treat their ailments as they cannot afford the cost of medical care today. Prices of essential drugs have gone beyond the reach of most people. Prices of basic food items like rice, yam and beans have also gone up drastically such that many people find it difficult to feed these days.
On top of these, terrorists have made life worthless by their orgy of destruction and abductions. Hapless families who are thinking of how to survive are being forced to sell property and mop up the little they have to pay ransom. To put it mildly, life in Nigeria has become hellfire.
A period like this calls for prudent management of resources. It demands sympathy for the citizens from a sensitive government. But what have we seen so far from a government that promised us renewed hope? Renewed hopelessness! While the citizens have tightened belts and have become walking skeletons, those who should comfort and rescue them live in insensitive display of opulence.
Just take a good look at the number one citizen of the country. He has shown in words and deeds that it is his turn to grab from where his predecessors left off. He gave us a hint of what to expect even before he became President. After he won the presidential primary election of the All Progressives Congress (APC), he landed at the presidential wing of the Murtala Mohammed Airport in Lagos with pomp. As he entered the city in a long motorcade, his supporters constituted a public nuisance to the hapless citizens of Lagos.
Soon after he was sworn in as President, he repeated his triumphant entry into Lagos with a long convoy of over 100 cars. Many citizens complained, but they failed to realize that it was just the beginning. Now, many people have lost the strength to complain. They grumble in their cocoons and resign to fate. The culture of peaceful protest, which was vibrant when Tinubu and his acolytes were in opposition, has almost fizzled out. Nigeria has been totally captured.
This is why you did not hear any whimper when the President travelled to the United Nations General Assembly in New York last September and wasted $507,384 or N390.6 million on his hotel room alone in one week. That is why the National Assembly members quickly passed the 2023 supplementary budget even when some of the items were not in the overall interest of Nigeria. Yes, we made some noise in the media about the wastage, about allocating billions for purchase of vehicles for the Office of the First Lady, which is unknown to our constitution, about the billions of naira mapped out for the renovation of the residences of the President and the Vice-President. After the media noise, what happened next? More wasteful expenditure followed. In the 2024 budget, a total of N20bn was earmarked for the renovation of the President and Vice-President’s offices. The sum of N15.961bn was mapped out for trips of aides in the presidency. If the trip of aides could gulp this much, you can imagine what that of the President and his deputy will be. This is a country said to be planning to borrow over $9bn to fund N27.5 trillion 2024 budget.
The climate conference in Dubai gave us a glimpse of what such trips could cost our nation. Estacodes and flight tickets alone took an amount that would go a long way in rehabilitating some of our dilapidated tertiary institutions. Premium Times estimated that Nigeria spent about N3 billion to sponsor government officials for this conference. This is even a conservative estimate as the newspaper computed the cost based on economy class tickets, whereas a number of the officials travelled in business class, which is more expensive.
It will be understandable if the party delegates are even useful in Dubai. But from available information, most of them are not. They reportedly have no understanding of COP negotiation procedures.
It is shameful that we have continued to exhibit our tomfoolery before the international community. Tinubu has travelled to about 10 countries since he assumed office a little over six months ago. He has been attending conferences, making some coherent and incoherent speeches and marketing our potential to foreign investors. But these investors are not fools. Out of courtesy, they listen to you attentively and make one or two promises. But, at the end of the day, they know that there are no clear-cut policies that will protect their investments. They know that insecurity can wipe off their sweat in one fell swoop. A few months ago, international pharmaceutical giant, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) left Nigeria after 51 years of operations in the country. Recently, the world’s largest household and personal care products company, Procter & Gamble (P&G), also exited Nigeria. These companies no longer see any prospect of growth in our business environment. There are some other companies both foreign and local that have closed shop in Nigeria.
Shall we lose hope? We shall not. Only dead people lose hope. As long as there is life, there is hope, but not Tinubu’s touted “renewed hope”. Nigerians have planted patience. They have sacrificed a lot. Their harvest time will come one day. And when it does come, the bazaar of the masses will surpass whatever certain greedy government officials have cornered. The power of the people remains supreme.
Re: Plot thickens over 2027 general election
It is ludicrous that of all the people on earth, it is Jega that will have the effrontery to come out and pontificate on electoral reforms. A Jega whose imprints dot the present rot we scoop now. Pray can Prof Jega honestly swear by the Koran that the elections he conducted in 2015 were free and fair? Can he use his family to swear that the results he declared then were the true reflections of the people’s vote or that Muhammad Buhari really won the election? It seems what they used to stuff the pockets is finished and he has scurried out from wherever he has been to seek further patronage. Abeg Teacher, don’t teach me nonsense.
•Aloy Uzoekwe, Anambra, 08038503174
Casmir, Nigeria is the undisputed record holder in both poor governance & electoral malfeasance! She extended the record in 2023 with the poor organisation of the hotly/’courtly’ disputed presidential elections. Anyone expecting electoral reforms from Tinubu before and beyond the 2027 elections will wait forever! Such a vision will end as a mirage! Tinubu is not the late Yar’Adua and Yar’Aadua is not Tinubu. Yar’Adua became remorseful over the 2003 elections that brought him to power and decided to embark on reforms to correct the aberrations in it! With Tinubu, the opposite is the case. He believes he won the elections fair and square; because PDP was fragmented into: PDP1 (Atiku), PDP2 (Obi), PDP3 (Kwankwaso) and PDP4 (Wike and the 4 other rebels). The National Assembly as presently constituted and led by an ally of Tinubu won’t do any reforms. He is too subservient to his benefactor – Tinubu! To do that is to indict INEC and delegitimize Tinubu’s purported victory. 2027 is the year of ‘once beaten, twice shy’! But, nemesis will catch up with them as the renewed hope is gradually turning out to be a dashed hope due to too many ‘false starts’ in governance.
•Mike, Mushin Lagos, 0816 111 4572