TINUBU: FIRST YEAR SCORE CARD : HOPE NOT RENEWED: MIXED REACTIONS

On Wednesday, 29 May, President Bola Tinubu will be one year in office. It is a milestone that evokes serious reflections, given the electoral promises of every occupant of that office and the country’s existential challenges that need to be tackled.

The promises don’t seem to match the deliverables and the mood of the people at the end.

He took over from Muhammadu Buhari, who stayed eight years in the saddle. In his inaugural speech, Tinub, off the cuff, said: “Subsidy is gone.” He later floated naira to compete with the dollar as a means of stabilising the volatility in the forex market.

Although it was obvious that the administration removed the petrol subsidy through the Petroleum Industrial Act, it made provision for the product until the end of June 2023. It’s also an undisputable fact that Nigeria has, for a long time, depended on oil and gas to keep the government running. However, the abrupt removal of subsidy by the Tinubu administration has drastically affected the economy and standard of living. The level of hunger in the land has been unprecedented.

Few weeks after the President’s inauguration, prices of food items, transportation, and essential goods skyrocketed. Hunger, starvation and lamentation have become the order of the day. Despite the worsening state of electricity supply, tariffs have also been increased. The exchange rate has worsened, thereby making naira worthless. Getting medical attention in the hospitals or even buying medicines at patent medicine stores, has gone beyond the reach of the ordinary person as everything has become unaffordable to the poor. All these were as a result of the removal of subsidy on petrol and some other tough decisions taken by the administration.

In fact, some critics of this government have said the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari, which some argued was a wasted eight years, started better than Tinubu’s.

The administration has noticed this incongruity, gauged the public mood and decided to make the anniversary low-key, a revelation the Minister of Information, Mohammed Idris, made.

As Tinubu marks one year in office, what may easily and cynically come to many minds could be that off-the-cuff and thunderous declaration, “fuel subsidy is gone,” to the cheers of Bretton Woods institutions, the infamous deities of market-driven economy. The liberalisation of the foreign exchange market followed. These two policies sparked a perfect storm for the economy.

Inflation, their ineluctable consequence, has since then become a bull in a china shop. Insecurity, lopsidedness in political appointments, transparency deficits in governance and disregard for the 1999 Constitution, have equally soared to dwarf Tinubu’s eight-point Renewed Hope Agenda

Beyond the subsidy crisis, which even drew bad blood between the President and the organised labour movement, Tinubu’s administration, in the last one year, has been characterised by tax burden of all sorts. Only recently, the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, in a bid to shore up the country’s forex reserve introduced the Cybersecurity levy,a policy that generated outcry among the different strata of society. Meanwhile, when the wailings of citizens became unbearable for Tinubu, he had to wade in to suspend the policy.

To be fair, he inherited an economy on the brink of total collapse, which he was desperate to change. For instance, his predecessor spent about N7.83 trillion in eight years on fuel subsidy. Reports of the NNPC Limited to the Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) showed subsidy payments of N1.57 trillion in 2021, and N1.27 trillion spent from January to May 2022. From June 2022 to June 2023, when its termination was originally programmed, N3 trillion was budgeted for it.

Tinubu got it wrong in his hastiness, without prior consultations with the organised labour and other stakeholders, over how to mitigate its inevitable searing pains. There was no cabinet in place then and for quite some time thereafter. Having put the cart before the horse, a raft of palliatives was hurriedly unfurled.

The packages include unleashing Compressed Natural Gas buses to help cushion the effects of skyrocketing transport fares. The vehicles are not on Nigerian roads just yet. Then the bait of having the Port Harcourt refinery commence fuel production in December 2023, which did not happen, while a newer date of April 2024 has turned out to be a chicanery too. The general implementation of palliatives to the people unfolded as mired in corruption at the centre, for which a minister has remained suspended from office till date, without any prosecution many months after. State governors were granted loans of N2.5 billion each for delivering palliatives, but they were no less irresponsive in the execution.

The President is claimed to have raised economic diplomacy higher, with his peripatetic overtures to foreign investors, which have taken him to France, UAE, India, Saudi Arabia and other nations. He has cut deals in some cases. But it’s not yet Uhuru until these claims translate into visible and enduring investments.

However, Nigeria’s unhinged fiscal crisis is evident in the administration’s rapacious procurement of foreign and domestic loans, the rash of asphyxiating taxations, and the naira’s steady devaluation. The Senate had, in December 2023, approved $7.8 billion and €100 million as part of the 2024 borrowing plan framework. This was followed by a $3.3 billion loan from Afrieximbank, thereafter a first tranche of $2 billion to mitigate the hardship of fuel subsidy and a more recent second tranche of $2.25 billion from the World Bank, coupled with the African Development Bank’s credit of $1 billion to the country. Locally, a N4 trillion credit line has just been secured to fund the 2024 budget deficit.

The propensity for debts cravings contradiict the Minister of Finance, Wale Edun’s expert view in November last year that “Internationally and locally, we are not in a position to rely on borrowing” in funding deficits. Instead, he advocated inward-looking. There are avalanche of leakages to be plugged. Unrecovered oil revenues of over $100 billion (documented stolen crude of $17 billion inclusive), evasion of taxes and levies by VIPs, solid minerals wealth surrendered to rogue miners, unrestrained crude oil theft, revenues the MDAs generate but fail to remit, etc.

Of serious concern is the imprudent use of revenue under Tinubu’s government. Its N90 billion 2024 Hajj subsidy, amid an economic headwind, is a sickening misplacement of priority. Christians would expect a balancing act, which will further bleed the treasury. States still owe salaries and pensions. On Tinubu’s watch, the Vice President’s residence cost some N15 billion to build; and the National Assembly splurged N57.6 billion on Sports Utility Vehicles (SUV) for its members. Yet, our universities are grossly underfunded.

The government embarked on construction of a 700 kilometres Lagos-Calabar coastal highway at a tentative cost of N15 trillion, when scores of existing highways remain death traps. The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) says 367 companies closed as of December 2023. Out of those still in business, 335 are in distress, while N350 billion worth of goods were not sold.

Nigeria’s unfriendly Ease of Doing Business has multiple taxations and high energy costs as pivots. Aliko Dangote emphasised it at the recent convention of Africa’s CEOs in Kigali, Rwanda, last week, that out of every N100 he makes in cement manufacturing, taxation takes N54. The CEO of TotalEnergies, Patrick Pouyanne, rubbed it in with his disclosure that his company snubbed Nigeria for Angola, in their $6 billion investment because of its policy flip-flops.

Tinubu has not demonstrated statecraft in allowing workers’ salaries to remain the same, one year after his economic policies unleashed the harshest hardship on Nigerians. Edo and Cross River states have offered N70,000 as against the Federal Government’s N57,000 minimum wage proposal last week. The indexations it might have used for the figure mismatch the headline inflation at 33.69 per cent, the highest in 28 years, and April’s food inflation at 40.53 per cent, as reported by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The situation is dire for Nigerians, especially for the unemployed, and the over 133 million Nigerians judged in 2022 as being multi-dimensionally poor. A litre of fuel, which sold for N185 a year ago, is currently selling between N750 and N800. Worse is the fact that it is scarce. Mid last year, a 50-kilogramme bag of rice was sold between N42,000 and N50,000. It soared to N90,000 in February, and now it costs N80,000. Besides foodstuffs, the cost of medicines, school fees, and house rents are on the same stratospheric trajectory.

Across a broad spectrum of Nigerians, visceral anger, alongside the din over hunger and suffering, is common. It took the IMF disclosure that subsidies are still being covertly paid on fuel to neuter official denial. This is rank recklessness and duplicity in governance.

Banditry and kidnapping are everywhere. The North-West and North-Central remain rivulets of the blood of thousands killed by non-state actors. Farmers, afraid of being killed or kidnapped, can’t farm any more. Tinubu’s recognition of this, perhaps, is the reason for his support of state policing as part of resetting Nigeria’s security Doctrine and Architecture, which he promised.

All things considered, the weight of the Constitution that makes the welfare and security of citizens the primary purpose of government, reduces Tinubu’s Renewed Hope mantra to a spectral gambit.

Nigeria’s inability to supply enough crude to Dangote Refinery; oil companies’ resort to the use of badges to ship their crude to export terminals, instead of through oil pipelines as oil theft escalates; the lack of due process in major road contracts; the indulgence of corrupt Customs personnel, while sparing looters of the Humanitarian ministry, are poignant echoes that dim whatever is the glaze of his stewardship so far.

Only a handful of ministers are active. The President needs to review the performance of his team, going forward, and in order to salvage whatever is possible of his dissolving electoral promises to Nigerians.

Not even a perfunctory statement from the President’s handlers that Mr President may sack non-performing Miniters has changed the narrative .

Meanwhile The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project SERAP has asked the President to “use the anniversary of your first year in office as an opportunity to demonstrate your oft-expressed commitment to democracy, accountability, and openness in government by immediately publishing your asset declaration form,” the organisation said in a statement issued on Sunday by its deputy director, Kolawole Oluwadare.

They also urged Tinubu “to encourage your Vice-President Kashim Shettima, ministers, and state governors to also widely publish their asset declaration forms.

The one year of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu can be summarized in the following:

·         Introduction of new taxes and increments in tariffs of essential utilities like electricity.

·         When Tinubu assumed office in May 2023, Nigeria’s inflation rate, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) was 22.41 per cent. However, consecutively, the figures rose every month to become the highest surpassing the 2005 and 1996 figures. The latest figure shows that the inflation rate is 33.2 per cent as of April 2024.

·         In one year, the food inflation rate increased by 15.17 per cent from 24.82 per cent recorded in May 2023 to 40.01 per cent as of March 2024.

·         The cost of eating a healthy diet rose from N503 in May 2023 to N982 in March 2024. This is an increase of 95.23 per cent in one year

·         The aftermath effect of the petrol subsidy’s removal increased the transportation cost. Before the removal, the average cost of a single journey on a motorcycle was N464.55. When compared after one year, the price increased by 1.6 per cent to N472.16. Also, the cost of a bus journey within a city increased by 46.2 per cent from N649.59 to N969.32. The cost of a bus journey within two states increased by 78.7 per cent from N4002.16 to N7152.97. For air transportation, the cost of a single-route journey increased by 18.7 per cent from N74,948.78 to N88,964.86. Meanwhile, for a single journey on water, the cost from N1,045.15 to N1,384.32, an increase of 32.5 per cent.

·         When Tinubu assumed office, the naira was exchanged at N461 to 1 dollar ($) but the president took steps to abolish the multiple exchange rate system. This increased the rate by 226.80 per cent to N1510/$1, after consequently rising until February 2024. As of April 204, the average rate was N1215/$1.

·         In one year, there was also an increase in the price of petrol, diesel, kerosene and gas at pump stations. The average price of a litre of petrol rose by 192.63 per cent in one year from N238.11 to N696.79. Also, a litre of diesel rose by 58.85 per cent from N844.28 to N1,341.16. While the price of a litre of kerosene rose from N1,206.05, by 12.30 per cent, to N1,354.40. For 1kg of gas, the price increased by 41.99 per cent from N928.45 to N1,318.32.

·         Tinubu presented his first budget of N27.5 trillion to the National Assembly in November 2023. The budget was however increased by 4.36 per cent when it was passed in January 2024 to N28.7 trillion. Several stories were reported of frivolous items contained in the budget.

·         Between June 2023 and February 2024, according to data gathered from NBS, the Federal Allocation Account Committee (FAAC) approved a total of N14.6 trillion to be shared between the three tiers of government.

·         Reports monitored by The ICIR also showed that in one year, the president visited 13 countries within one year. Guinea Bissau and Saudi Arabia were visited twice.

·         According to data filtered from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, (ACLED), between June 2023 to the end of April 2024, a total of 7,828 people were killed in various insecurity attacks.

 

LITTLE WONDER NOBODY IS CELEBRATING