There are two artists whose songs drive me into a contemplative mood. They also make me pretend. Pretend that certain existential realities, like inflation, do not exist. I am talking about Nat King Cole and Bobby McFerrin. You probably have only enjoyed the rhythm of their classic songs but never got to think through the lyrics. Now come with me and think through what King Cole sang in his song titled ‘Pretend’. He said: “Pretend you are happy when you’re blue; It isn’t very hard to do; And you’ll find happiness without an end; Whenever you pretend.”
On the other side of it, McFerrin, who asked you not to worry but to be happy always said “In every life, we have some trouble; But when you worry you make it double; Don’t worry; Be happy, don’t worry, be happy now.” that’s exactly what we need to do at a time like this –pretend, don’t worry, just be happy! You may also pretend to be happy while hiding your pain that the current economic realities have made you look like you are a failure.
While you contemplate through these verses from Nat King Cole and Bobby McFerrin, I will encourage you to just pretend that all is well with you and your country and so, be happy because, as McFerrin said “When you worry, your face will frown; and that will bring everybody down.”
Come with me! I have graciously taken Nat King Cole’s admonition and have gone on pretending that all is well even when I know that it is not. However, I am happy that those who brought this unprecedented hardship which has ostracized humans from themselves, alienated fathers from their responsibilities as well as almajirinised a people once rated as the happiest on earth know quite very well that they have failed to renew the hope of an expectant people even with their charismatic pontification.
Nigerians call it ‘renewed shege.’ But it is much more than that. Nothing is renewed. It is rather enhanced. Enhanced poverty. Enhanced starvation which is approaching kwashiorkor levels. Enhanced criminality in governance. Enhanced nepotism. Enhanced instrumentation of the human being through rice trucks which ferry palliatives that work only as analgesics; soothing pain but never curing any. These are pains inflicted on the people with so much grandstanding and bravado over policy reforms. They are pains which present themselves as a thought-out tool to silence a crowd that in 2023 created, composed and delivered a derisive “baba wey no well, e dey shout emilokan…” when their mouths were stuffed with food. The policy clearly says something like ‘let me see how you’ll sing when you are hungry.’ For now, it is working the magic. The crowd is silenced. Everyone is now more focused on how to find breakfast and dinner. Even in this state, the policymakers and enforcers still fear the silent rage of the defeated and economically chastised and emasculated youth because they suddenly realised that Kenya has become an inspiration that could outclass EndSARS.
Look around you, supermarket shelves are becoming empty. Many are shutting down. Multinationals are rolling up their mats and walking away. Under Muhammadu Buhari’s government, we were told that the problem was caused by 16 years of PDP. Today, APC tells us that it is resolving a problem caused by eight years of APC. But what do I know? I am neither an economist nor an economics major. I am just a bloody citizen of the Federal Republic, who in his ignorance knows that the continuous pouring of cash into the system through conditional cash transfer and mindless palliative only successfully promotes corruption and spreads poverty.
As an economic ignoramus, I know that the inflation rate is now at 34.19 per cent (the highest since March 1996), while food inflation is at 40.87 per cent. I also know that consumer prices increased by 2.3 per cent in June while the annual core inflation was put at 27.40 per cent in the same month. The increase in prices of beverages stood at 24.1 percent in June while housing and utilities increased by 30.3 percent. Cash transfers and food palliatives have not positively altered these indicators. If they were meant to change the indices, they would have done so after more than six years of practice. Instead, inflation has significantly increased the cost of living, reduced purchasing power, created uncertainty for businesses and expanded inequality as well as reduced the standard of living and led to higher production costs, reduced profits, and made it difficult to predict future costs. Electricity bills are also forcing businesses to lay off staff and cut production.
These realities cannot be cured by sharing truckloads of rice with states. The civil servants, who benefit from these, do not constitute up to 10 percent of Nigeria’s population. The argument here is that any economic intervention policy that does not directly impact positively on more than 50 per cent of the population of Nigeria, is a wasted effort.
It thus means that if President Bola Tinubu, were to honestly engage his mind in a thorough examination of his welfarism since June 2023, he would be thoroughly embarrassed that he has messed with his government’s disposition to redirect the course of the country’s progressive drift. He will also come to the common truth that his administration has so far delivered more people into the poverty bracket than it has rescued. He certainly also will realise that his administration is recklessly spreading poverty across the country while creating a bourgeoisie that may never enjoy the peace they crave because of a hungry, homeless, naked and angry proletariat.
However, there is still time for the president to rescue his government and change the narrative. To do so, he must arrest the reckless waste of scarce resources on palliatives that solve no problems. He must also change whatever mindset he has on the security situation across the country. This is because apart from the negative effect of his subsidy policy on transportation and logistics, insecurity has remained the major factor negatively impacting food production. Throwing open the gates to food importation, cannot be the solution to the problem. Farmers need to safely go back to their farms and also be assured of safety to harvest their crops. Nothing else will radically change the narrative on food scarcity in Nigeria.
The president must also open himself to options available for job creation. Creating new ministries or agencies and parastatals cannot be the solution to addressing youth unemployment. It can only increase the cost of governance for which there is a very strong campaign for reduction. Tapping into options in apprenticeship will help mop up unemployed youths and set them up for self-reliant engagements. The money wasted between June 2023 and June 2024 on palliatives and cash transfers, would have strategically engaged a lot of youths in enterprises that will make them more focused on business than on protest.
The government needs to begin to think rather than acting on impulse. While it does so, don’t worry, be happy. Just pretend.