In Nigeria, there is a disturbing penchant for excuses by some of our leaders in finding solutions to some of the ills plaguing the country. The present administration appears to be following that track as well. Recently, President Bola Tinubu was quoted to have said that the lingering spate of insecurity in Nigeria, especially in the North-West region, had to do with inherited security compromises, historical injustices and institutional frailties.
Speaking at a recent two-day security and peace summit organised by the North-West Governors Forum, in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme in Katsina State, Tinubu said, “The road to redeeming the security compromises we inherited was mapped out before we embarked on this journey. We realised that achieving the peace we seek necessitates addressing the historical injustices that have torn communities apart. We must also reverse the institutional frailties governing security and the economic dysfunctions that create vulnerabilities to crime. We must also counter the ideological mischief that has pervaded the discourse of peace and security in the region.”
The President may be correct in his analysis, but Nigerians are tired of the blame game. They want immediate action to solve the problem of insecurity holistically. The President should understand that he didn’t seek power just to sit in the office and enjoy it. Nigerians already know that he inherited these problems, but they elected him to solve them. He should lay out strategies that will lead to tackling the problems without dwelling much about past mistakes.
Former President Muhammadu Buhari also wasted time dwelling in the past. He said he would tackle insecurity, corruption and fix the economy. But he spent more time blaming his predecessor than solving the nation’s problems.
In 2022, his government and the governors embarked on a blame game expedition over the rising poverty level in the country. While the Federal Government blamed the state governors for the problem, the governors threw the blame back to the Federal Government, accusing it of not fulfilling its obligations to Nigerians. The then Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Clement Agba, had accused the governors of paying more attention to building flyovers and airports in the cities instead of improving the life of the poor rural dwellers. Buhari added that the mismanagement of the local government funds and 13 per cent derivation to oil-producing states was responsible for the poverty rate in the country.
On their part, the governors, under the aegis of the Nigeria Governors Forum, blamed the FG for being unable to secure lives and property, “thus allowing bandits, insurgents, and kidnappers to turn the country into a killing field, maiming and abducting people in schools, market squares and even on their farmlands.” All these, they said, had made life harsh for the rural people and led them to poverty. The poverty rate worsened despite Buhari’s promise to pull 100 million Nigerians out of poverty by 2030.
The worst was that Buhari’s administration also engaged in internal buck passing. Unable to meet the demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), for instance, the then Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, blamed the Ministry of Education, for the lingering ASUU strike then. As he put it, he was not the Minister of Education and that certain things were above him. “The bosses in the Federal Ministry of Education do not feel the strike,” he complained.
President Tinubu should avoid this pitfall. During his campaign for the 2023 presidential election, he criticized the Buhari administration for the poor management of the country’s foreign exchange market. Today, the forex market has become more volatile, with the Naira exchanging for about N1,500 per dollar.
Though the President pledged to make Nigeria safer, the problem of insecurity appears to be worsening. Recently, some female suicide bombers wreaked havoc in Borno State, killing a number of innocent citizens. Security experts estimate that over 4,700 people had been abducted since Tinubu assumed office in May 2023, while over 5,000 Nigerians were reportedly killed within his first seven months in office.
One year has gone full cycle. Tinubu should begin to walk his talk. Many people who voted for him believe that he will be able to tackle the problems of the country. He should begin to treat the matter of insecurity with dispatch.
It is true that many of our democratic institutions are frail or deficient and are not strong enough to withstand interferences. But leadership can change anything. The United States of America was beset by a number of problems. But Barack Obama came in as President and went headlong into solving the problems.
Nigerians expect improvement in solving the problems the President itemized in his Renewed Hope Agenda. We are hopeful that the government’s strengthening of collaborations among the Services and other security agencies to ensure a unified approach to building pragmatic solutions to the security compromises will bear good fruit.