THE deepening despair and gut-wrenching poverty in Nigeria today, once a vibrant country, is such that can break the hearts of even those as tough as nails. But then, the anguish that the Tinubu government has unleashed on Nigerians in the past 15 months(and counting), is a sad reminder of that bleak, numbing feelings of “Why Nations Fall”. This masterpiece of a book, first published in 2012, by two economists, Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson aside taking readers into the origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty, explains in gripping but convincing manner with clear evidence why some nations are wealthy and some other nations in heartbreaking poverty. Isn’t that where Nigeria and its citizens are today? How I wish it was possible for President Bola Tinubu at this stage of his life to go back to school, because leadership involves lifelong learning.
And as one Management theory goes, “you don’t conquer new markets with old skills”. I am not suggesting for him to go to Chicago State University, his Alma mater. This is to avoid any fresh controversy. There are tens of hundreds of reputable, nuanced institutions across the globe that offer refresher courses in leadership lessons for leaders whose nations are faced with complex, fast-moving crises of immediate sort. That’s the hole Nigeria is right now as a result of clueless leadership. Tinubu needs new tools and techniques to navigate through a fast-changing uncertainties of the present political and economic dynamics. No amount of lies, propaganda, hackneyed and rehashed policies that stand no chance of delivering measurable results will do it. Tinubu needs to change his mindset of ‘too-big-to-fail’ mentality and create a new mental model that can bring about a unity of effort to governing a complex and diverse nation like Nigeria.
He also needs to move away fast from his occupational disease of nepotism that has, perhaps unknown to him and key policy advisers, put Nigeria in accelerated trap, a kind of a bind or box that even himself will struggle to break out from. It’s not unkind to say that in 15 months, the President has missed his way. He had since abandoned the compass that brought him to office. That’s what happens to leaders who run aground in the office. That’s why Nigeria, once a resourceful nation that other countries look up to for inspiration in leadership and peacekeeping missions, has become a butt of all jokes. It’s because leadership ought not to be about tearing people down; it’s about helping citizens become the very best of themselves.
It comes down to one simple sentence: People must come first, self-interest last. It is unfortunate that before Tinubu’s ascension to power, almost everyone had concluded that his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari, would go down in our present democratic dispensation as the leader it was the misfortune of Nigeria to have had. How wrong we are. Like Rehoboam, the grand son of King David, while Buhari laid on Nigerians a heavy yoke, Tinubu has made it heavier, with hardship never experienced in decades. Again, that’s why nations fall, because their leaders fail to learn the lessons in power. It pains me each time I write about this President, how his policies have impoverished Nigerians.
I don’t hate him as some boutique analysts might say. I was raised to see the very best in others. I love my president. But I dislike the president’s leadership style. My favourite definition of leadership is the ability to reconcile opportunity and competency. As Machiavelli advised, “Never waste the opportunities offered by a good crisis”. Nigeria is at the crossroads. Any good leader with an eye for counterintuitive solutions to the challenges facing his country and citizens, needs to understand that extreme problems and seemingly insurmountable adversity can be a crucible for creativity and leadership by example. It bears repeating that leadership, to borrow the words of a former U.S. President Gerald R. Ford, the ‘presidency is not a prize to be won, it’s a duty to be done’.
You see, anyone can be a leader, but the difference between a great leader and a “waka just pass” leader, is optimizing what you can do with the opportunity you have, the skills and talents you have surrounded yourself with. You may be wondering, what’s the meaning of “waka just pass leader”. It’s a pidgin lingo for leaders who enjoy the luxuries of the office without caring about worthy legacy. Sadly, very often, Nigerian leaders behave like drunken sailors, sometimes, in the words of Prof Farooq Kperogi, “like overfed fathers of starving children”. They forget the words of the Genevan born philosopher Jean-jacques Rousseau(1712-1778) that “when people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich”. His work on Social Contract is a must read for any leader who wants to succeed and not break the trust of his compatriots. I am afraid to say that Nigeria is careening towards that bleak, numbing tipping point. The consequences could be incalculable. Some foreign news outlets have been warning about this foreboding scenario. For instance, three months ago, America’s influential newspaper, The New York Times, warned against the likely consequences of the current economic crisis in Nigeria. “The pain is widespread”, the paper said, adding that “people die in stampedes, desperate for free sacks of rice. Hospitals are overrun with women wracked by spams from calcium deficiencies”. I lost my elder brother three weeks ago because the hospitals could not respond fast to emergency situation after we had deposited close to N1 million. The New York Times blamed the crisis on Tinubu’s ill-advised policy reforms such as subsidy removal on petrol, and the floating of the currency, the naira, which together, have caused major price hikes of essential commodities. It’s an irony, the paper noted, that Nigeria, a nation of entrepreneurs has gone this terribly bad, falling from the largest economy in Africa to now in fourth position. No doubt, Nigeria’s resourcefulness has been stretched to the limit.
Also, last month, London-based Financial Times, wrote in similar vein, stating that the Tinubu administration has “forced his 220 million Nigerians to swallow some bitter medicine by removing fuel subsidy, one of the very few benefits citizens receive from their inefficient and corrupt state”. The paper said that allowing the naira to enter free-fall that has triggered high inflation and the worst cost of living, demonstrates lack of clear fiscal policy direction. Many experts in the country, including the Organised Private Sector (OPS) have described this flip-flop policy as disturbing. But government policymakers are not listening. They claim Tinubu’s policies will elevate Nigerian economy. And you ask, how? Last week, at the 65th Annual conference the Nigeria Economic Summit(NES), the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Wale Edun said Tinubu did not promise Nigerians “silver bullet”, a simple solution to complicated problems.
The inability of this admin to provide any silver lining in the last 15 months, is inexcusable. It is simply a failure of leadership. No amount of foreign trips at Nigeria’s taxpayers’ money will attract the much anticipated investment inflow. The reason is simple: Investors are not fickle minded. They are savvy. They put their money where their mouth is. Tinubu may be right when he claimed during his visit to Germany, November last year, that he deserves to be listed in the Guinness World records for the reforms he has implemented since he assumed office on May 29, 2023. Such claim is for the wrong reasons. His policies have destroyed lives and livelihood far more than his predecessors had done. His latest foreign trip to China remains, like previous foreign trips, the tale of Nero playing the fiddle when Rome was burning. According to one source, behind the president’s back, the Chinese investors who recently seized two of his presidential jets were making a jest of Nigeria and our style of governance, especially when Tinubu reportedly said that Nigerians should not expect anything free.
Former President, GoodLuck Ebele Jonathan succinctly captured the problem with the APC government in his memoir, “My Transition Hours”, in the following words, “If you embark on digging a hole for your enemy, you better make it shallow, because you might end up in the hole yourself”. He asked, “how do you attract investors you already repelled through your utterances”. Jonathan said the most painful was the barrage of attacks on his ministers, associates and members of his family. Undoubtedly, money runs away from unstable countries. Where is Lai Mohammed? Wherever he’s today, he may not be too far away to see what the APC chieftains instigated him to do as the spokesperson of the then opposition political party, against the administration of Jonathan. Mohammed was handsomely rewarded with the position of Minister of Information. It may sound harsh to conclude that part of the trouble with the Tinubu administration is karma at work. It would have been better if the consequence of this has been on the oppressors instead of the oppressed Nigerians. Any lesson learnt? It’s best to focus on facts, not propaganda that has failed to deliver dividends of democracy in 15 months.
