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By Henry Uche
On May 29, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will mark one year in office and many Nigerians have rated his administration below average, while his image makers and supporters are applauding him. Speaking on Channels TV, the National Chairman of Social Democratic Party, Mr. Shehu Gabam, expressed dissatisfaction over the president’s performance, and asked him to fire about 70 percent of his cabinet members if Nigeria must come out of the woods, among other issues.
Reaction to Vice President’s self pass mark
For me, the vice president is one of the best speech makers, but there is difference between making a speech and the reality on ground. This government made a very serious mistake on the very day they took oath of office. I was at the Eagle square, I was not told. After taking oath of office, the next item to talk about is the budget.
Now, my thought is that since there was no formation of the Federal Executive Council, there were no aides appointed to discuss issues of national importance. Taking a national decision of removing subsidies of 300 or 400 percent, that was the foundation of the crisis that we find ourselves till date.
Second, the same president knows that he inherited a collapse system from the economic, political, agricultural, education and everything was almost on its knees before he took over. He applied for the job and I’m happy he said he’s not complaining. We don’t even want him to complain. Already, Nigerians are complaining.
Virtually all strata of the economy are stranded right now. The economy is the worst of it because the environment is not even inviting for anybody to come in from the domestic and international to invest.
Let them rollout the statistics of investment attracted and statistics of companies that have moved out of Nigeria. Don’t even talk about the health or agricultural sectors. In all, the economy is a failure and they admitted that the economy is a failure.
Some people believe they’re doing well and we should exercise patient
No, I’m one of those that have been advising the government to do the right thing. First, he knew that the economy was in bad shape. When you meet a building that has collapsed, you cannot build it up in a day. The system is suffocated. The economy doesn’t breathe, so if you are coming up with a policy, it has to be strategically positioned.
Are you saying the renewed agenda is woeful? They have made two major policies: Unification of the FX and the Devaluation of the Naira… (Cuts in)
I don’t agree with their policy. You made the analysis. You know the fluctuations. We floated our currency, and we have nothing to back it up. We’re in for borrowing. The policy may be good but the process was faulty and the implementation was faulty.
There was no human face. There was no consideration that the purchasing power of Nigerians is extremely very low. You can’t run an economy where the citizen cannot afford two square meals a day. What kind of economy are we running?
But the vice president is a former banker, the President is a former tax expert, they should understand the economy more than other past presidents and their deputies
They understand a little about economy, but not elementary economy, where people are being affected. People cannot purchase food. People cannot pay their children’s courses. In the hospitals, people cannot pay the bills and food inflation is extremely very high. What kind of economy are you driving; Western economy that our systems cannot accommodate? Or you are dealing with economy that has our peculiarity as a nation. They are two different things.
If the projection for the economy is to satisfy the western interests, then the citizens will perish along the way and that’s why the entire economy from the grassroots, the middle class is almost gone. There are no middlemen anymore. Even the lowest people that are selling fresh drinks, they cannot afford it because of the electricity. So what kind of economy are we building? They are yet to define it. If the economy is to empower and create jobs for the citizens and to have access to funding with a low interest rate, then you are making sense to me.
Your description of this government is scary. You passed a vote of no confidence on this government but some would say Buhari’s administration was the worst, taking us 20 years back…
Yes, let me say again, Buhari’s government is the worst government Nigeria ever had. It’s the consequences of what Bola Ahmed Tinubu is suffering from because he knew that he inherited a very bad system that has collapsed already. But your responsibility is to find a softer way of rejigging the economy not in a rush way because you cannot revamp it in a day. When somebody faints, it requires a lot of process to bring him back to life because he inherited the a economy that is in ICU (Intensive Care Unit) completely.
So, there is no doubt that Buhari took our economy to the dustbin. People could not afford anything. The insecurity issues led to worsening of the economy, destroyed our agricultural sector, our strategic integration center. That means what you need is strategic thinkers, strategic applications and strategic implementation.
Are the handlers of the economy doing the right thing?
I don’t believe because even the Minister of Finance understands the peculiarity of the Nigerian economy and where we are coming from and where we lost it. The best thing he would have done is to go back to the bases. There are records in the Ministry of Finance.
There’s a template for him to follow. And then even the dynamics of the new generation that we’ve lost in the modern economy that we run, all they need to do is to re -modernise, re- inject a lot of initiative, a lot of innovation to drive the economy. You cannot drive economy when you have business to run, you cannot borrow because the interest is very high and you expect people not to go and commit crime; it is not possible.
No credit for this government?
The insecurity in the South East has reduced, but in the last one week, if you look at the maiming, the barbarism, the killing that is going on around Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara, and Katsina states, it’s a very serious concern. Like I’ve said, they have given a lot of priority and they are getting it right in terms of security. But they need to understand that dealing with non-state actors also requires generating a lot of ideas on how to navigate through what the government is doing. So there’s a need to re-organise the architecture as a whole; the Nigerian police as much as possible because the domestic operation of the security of Nigeria is littered with the Nigerian police. The army should be repositioned to those areas they call war zones, the army alone cannot deal with the situation. They need a squad that specialises in dealing with some of these non-state actors that have a lot of connects in terms of destabilising the states.
Do you suggest restructuring the security architecture?
Absolutely. I saw the office of the National Security Adviser organising special squad to deal with some of these crimes and criminality but that will not be sufficient enough. But he’s doing very well in terms of trying to handle the situation but the dimensions are extremely very complicated; very complicated. I cannot imagine that we live in a nation where people can go in and rape a mother, rape a child, kill a father, kidnap children- 300, as if we’re ants, it can never happen anywhere in the world,
Which means that whatever we have invested in the security isn’t working. You have other security agencies: the DSS, the army themselves that have intelligent unit to combat, see we are not suffering from supply of intelligence, what we’re suffering from is implementation and the will, to execute those strategic intelligence and decisions.
Choice of Tinubu’s cabinet
Without apology, I can say that, in the absence of just two ministers that are somehow working -the FCT minister and minister of Works and Housing. If you like hate him, or like him, he is working in the FCT and doing tremendously well. What matters is what are you putting on ground for the citizens. The other one that is making noise and very controversial is the minister of Works and Housing. You can see some resemblance of what he’s doing but then it’s laden with lots of controversies. Apart from that, he should change the minister of agriculture. Look at the Ministry of Justice, and ministry of health -our doctors are leaving Nigeria. Look at our embassy, what are they doing? It’s in our own strategic interest for him to fire 70 percent of his cabinet; it is strategic for Nigeria. Nigeria has sufficient manpower that he needs to drive his government? But if he relies on political patronage, I don’t see him going anywhere.
