By Nnamdi Elekwachi
In Nigeria, the largest democracy in Africa, a nationwide protest against mounting hardships themed ‘End Bad Government’ is being planned, making concerns to grow in the Tinubu-led government.
While Tinubu, who had introduced taxing reforms, has been urging Nigerians, since his maiden Democracy Day speech in June of last year, to exercise patience, there is no proof that the president himself was patient with the economy before launching his reforms. For an economy that suffered the throes of currency redesign, and the COVID-19 pandemic before it, patience should have been exercised before introducing such rigorous reforms (removal of subsidies and unification of the foreign exchange windows).
Unfortunately, Tinubu had yet to settle in when he announced that ‘subsidy was gone.’ He had not constituted his cabinet, meaning that he consulted nobody, when he made that unilateral promulgation on inauguration day. That was how he got off to a bad start as the toll his presidential fiat has taken on the economy is there for all to see.
That declaration has been followed by a severe economic headwind, nearly pushing Nigeria over the fiscal cliff. Irony is that long after indigent Nigerians lowered expectations moving from bags of rice and beans, which used to be the standard per household, to ‘mudu’ and ‘paint,’ food insecurity is not letting up. Inflation too is soaring as family finances keep shrinking. So it is understandable why citizens, who have lost jobs and businesses, irately want to demonstrate their dissatisfaction, through a peaceful mass protest.
The anger Is not limited to Tinubu alone. Conspicuous consumption among the political class is alarmingly high. For example, Nigerians are seeing lawmakers buy and brandish an SUV worth millions for their families. The three arms of government, it appears, seem to be in collaboration to create wealth just for themselves. The first money bill Tinubu sent to the Tenth Assembly, as supplementary budget for 2023, awarded ₦70 bn to the federal lawmakers to enable them to ‘settle in,’ while the judiciary got ₦35 bn, at a time Nigerians struggled under hardship.
While all this happened, stories about the purchase of a presidential yacht and later new private jets, the renovation of the vice president’s lodge, building of car parks for lawmakers, all in billions of taxpayers’ naira, were entertained and, in some cases, executed. As I have stated elsewhere: having collected the ₦160 million largesse each for SUV, lawmakers suddenly realised there was a need to expand their car parks to contain their new possessions, so ₦5 bn was given to each of the two chambers to that effect. Citizens expressed their frustration through diverse ways, yet the political class remained unfeeling. Tinubu, who declared emergency on food security, was greeted with a hunger protest during a visit to Lagos, his home state, when a disruption from a disillusioned crowd rent the air: ‘e bin pawa o.’ Sadly, the president failed to take the message home. The cry to reduce the cost of governance went unheeded, as a new ministry (of livestock), is set to come on board, bringing the number of ministerial portfolios to near 50!
Granted, Tinubu himself is not new to the game, being a graduate of the school of protest who had risen through the ranks over the years. If Tinubu were to be on the side of the opposition today, he would have long mobilised for a protest against the incumbent. ‘The Jagaban,’ as he is popularly known, has never settled for a middle-of-the-road position concerning public protests – where he organises, sponsors and, of course, elects to be in the vanguard, whether at home or in exile. So chances are that his government could be plotting a counterplan.
Tinubu is believed to have the wherewithal to buy opinions, including hiring voice actors to amplify his case if need be. He had already begun by holding meetings with monarchs, clerics, governors and chieftains within the APC politburo, including cabinet ministers and the rest, and the results are out already: festivals and meetings are to coincide with date of the planned protest in Lagos and the FCT, the likely epicenters of the protest. The police and DSS are not left out; statements had been released warning about uncovered plot to install ‘a reign of terror’ and effect a regime change.’ So, already, the baby had been named before it arrived.
Even groups and guilds are already distancing themselves from the planned protest, either as a mark of solidarity or fear, yet the plot, among the plotters, keeps thickening.
In Nigeria, that is the thing with government and protests, a part of fundamental rights often perceived as an insurrection against which the state must mobilise all manner of resistance, even if it were to be a kinetic measure. It was so with the #EndSARS Protests in 2020, #RevolutionNow and other protests recently. But whatever the establishment does or does not should not vitiate the justification for the planned protest – hunger and hardships.
The government on its own part is listing what has been done so far through interventions. Wage increase has been awarded workers by over a hundred per cent, fertilisers given to farmers, student loan to be implemented, Northwest and Southeast Development Commission bills signed by the president. As expected, Tinubu’s government punctuated its intervention list by asking for more patience from the people to enable it to jumpstart the economy that is still in a parlous state.
Even if we are to make the heroic assumptions that the government is indeed working to cushion the pains and that the economy is on a recovery path, that does not address what protest planners are asking for, which are exhaustive albeit tangible. For emphasis, the planners are saying: reintroduce subsidies on the consumption of petrol and energy, the only essential necessities citizens enjoyed before the economic reforms. But the issue of subsidies has a foreign policy angle to it.
In its official publications such as country reports and regional economic outlooks, the IMF would often counsel the Federal Government to remove subsidies on petrol and energy consumption in order to scale up safety net programmes to transfer cash to vulnerable households. The IMF, it appears, is where Tinubu is taking his orders from, not home. While publications from the Fund are welcome, they should not form the major plank of our economic policies, especially if they do not suit Nigeria’s prevailing realities and peculiarities. Tinubu should make himself available for once, look for ways of engaging the planners, not talking to some monarchs and clerics.
While I am not sure that this protest will force the government’s hand, I know it will take something huge to have Tinubu repent on this whole subsidy matter. I am also not unmindful of the scapegoating and ethnic twists that usually colour peaceful protests in Nigeria, especially when businesses belonging to ‘non-indegenes’ suffer hostile attacks all in the name of ‘preserving our heritage.’
While I commend the young protest planners, may I simply remind them that they constitute a political base, a formidable bloc capable of shaping policies and deciding future political outcomes, if they remain resolute, not yielding to primordial sentiments of ethnicity, religion and region. This is still the area where politicians and their allies still outsmart the rest of us: planning ahead. How does one process the fact that an Ooni who was flown to Abuja on taxpayers’ money, together with other traditional rulers, came out to drum support for 2027 tacitly?
While the protest planners go on with their lawful activities, the task of salvaging the country is still ahead, not only for next month. We have 2027 to protest, and that is where we need to demonstrate louder by making choices that suit our yearnings of today.
Nnamdi Elekwachi, a historian wrote from Umuahia, Abia State.
