The lies of Mr President
A Facebook personality, Olaleye Aramide, a friend to this reporter was at her sarcastic best when she wrote a day to October 1st, Nigeria's independence remembrance day that nobody should make the mistake of greeting her for the independence. When we were very young independence celebration was a day much looked for but that has changed. Nobody is happy about the independence day. Many Nigerians don't want to be one again. Aramide is a woman and she goes to make her purchases for her family. Cost of living has been spiraling since slightly over one year ago when Nigerians had the unfortunate ill-luck of having Bola Ahmed Tinubu as their president by mere acquiescence. Why mere acquiescence? Only eight million of over two hundred million Nigerians voted for him in a highly rigged and very controversial election. The courts in Nigeria did not find the petitions of those who challenged Tinubu's election reasonable and so they pronounced Tinubu winner of that very doubtful election. Don't get happy to think Nigerians accepted the ruling of the courts because it is a democratic thing to do. Even the most optimistic of Nigerians know the courts in the nation are no place where justice could be procured. Some have labelled our judges as cash-and-carry. Not only the people are saying it, some of the judges acknowledge that fact also.
Unlike in the distant past when Nigerians will wake up early once a president is expected to address the nation, this present Independence Day address by Tinubu attracted no enthusiasm. What is he going to say than the usual lies, many Nigerians said. I also shared their feelings. I was not going to waste my time to forsake my good sleep for the president's nothingness. Muhammad Buhari, Tinubu's predecessor, so wasted Nigerians precious eight years telling lies after lies. Take for example, when flood as a result of water released by the Lagdo dam in Cameroon ravaged many cities in Nigeria, notably Lokoja the capital of Kogi where the ex-governor of the state, Yahaya Bello sat for eight years siphoning an estimated 270 billion naira of the state's fund as alleged by the EFCC, some of them to pay the schools fees of his children, Buhari shouted to the nation then, "I have given the minister of water resources 90 days to come up with a solution." It was a lie to put Nigerians to sleep. The minister would soon tell the nation that all the solutions to the perennial flooding are in the file. There is nothing new to do but Buhari had not done anything until that flood carried away thousands of Nigerians and at the same time exhuming the corpses of some Nigerians from where they were buried, reminding the citizens they have no assurance that their dead will rest in peace, however, they pray and wish after they are dead.
We have heard a similar cry and deception from Bola Tinubu again. After he came from his tour of China and Britain he quickly visited the scene of the Maiduguri flood, due to the collapse of a dam there. That dam had been in that condition since the Borno State governor, Professor Babagana Zulum won his first term election as governor over five years ago. Four days before the dam gave way, a team of 'experts' despatched to investigate the condition of the dam by the state government had turned in a 'no cause for alarm' report to the government. If it is true that this actually happened, because it may not have happened, those who did that report which is said to have been headed by the State's Secretary to the Government should have been dismissed. As at my last count before I stopped following news of the flood about 37 persons had died and thousands had been rendered homeless. I watched a video where loaves of bread were being thrown to victims as one would throw pieces of crumbs to a dog.
Tinubu's response to all this is: "We have ordered integrity test on all dams in the country." You can count that for a lie, a hoodwink just to give an impression that Tinubu cares. He does not and he has never. Most of the dams are owned by the state governments, how then is it that it is the federal government that is giving instruction that integrity test on them be done? Somebody has said the reason politicians tell lies is that their speeches are always written for them by people who did not stand for an election but hacks hired to polish them up before the public. Nigerian speech writers are special liars; they tell lies, they say what they think Nigerians want to hear. If they were people who have the slightest idea about heaven as a place where all souls will return after this world, I would have had the boldness to tell them that the hotfire of hell is waiting for them. For so they told lies for Buhari to read, for so they told lies on behalf of Ibrahim Babangida, Abdusalami Abubakar, Goodluck Jonathan, Olusegun Obasanjo, Shehu Shagari and now Bola Tinubu.
So when President Tinubu stood before Nigerians on 1st October and told them that his government had reduced the loan repayment in terms of revenue, form 97 to 68 percent, we ought to ask him how? Statistics can be used and be misused. We must ask how this miracle came about? If it is true which is very doubtful it must be at the expense of the blood of Nigerians who are committing suicide every day. If we were spending 97 percent of our revenue to service loans and it is now reduced to 68 percent, it is obviously achieved by increasing taxes to a killing level. Government has not reduced its huge expenses to maintain itself. First Lady Oluremi Tinubu was reported to have sneaked out of the country to attend sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting with a large retinue of wives of governors, where they had no particular function. Mrs Tinubu and the wife of the Vice President got to New York three days before Vice-President Kashim Shettima, who represented his principal.
Towards the end of his sugar candy speech to Nigerians, Tinubu informed Nigerians of plans to convey a Youth Conference. Youth, he said, constitute over 60 percent of Nigeria’s population. I figure this is an understatement, youths in Nigeria must be far more than that, whoever wrote that speech was lazy to check the statistics or maybe there is none. The purpose of the confab is to engage the youth. It will hold for 30 days. A retired and very cerebral top civil servant with whom we belong to the same WhatsApp group put that proposed Confab down to "wind chasing." Why? There are papers on youth engagement in the files and all the government needs to do is to dust up the files to take care of those who we cajole as the future of the country but whose current position has been totally destroyed.
Tinubu's proposed Youth Confab is no more than a ploy to distract the youth who are becoming restive and pose a threat to the stability of the government having being so neglected. There is no need to waste another conference on the youth when some have been held in the past. If President Bola Tinubu says he does not know the ugly situation of Nigerian youths then he does not deserve to be the nation's president. Though he was not the sitting president in 2020 when many youths were massacred at Lekki Toll Gate for demanding an end to police brutality against them, it was as if the whole anger was directed at Bola Tinubu. The man he imposed on Lagos as governor, Babajide Sanwoolu prominently featured in the crisis. It is now being reported on the social media that Sanwoolu offered bribe of 100 million naira in cash to the key lawyers in the protest so that they will support his government and let bygones be bygones. A prominent activist lawyer, Femi Falana was alleged in the bribe saga to have been behind a peace arrangement, though it has featured that Falana only brokered peace even writing to the Lagos State government that the money should be accepted to take care of those who became victims of the protests. If Falana wrote officially to the Lagos State government, then people are thinking that he had no impure motive. But the great social activist still has to deny or confirm the allegation that he brokered a pardon for the cross dresser, Bobrisky who was jailed for "spraying" the naira. That will clear the good name of this great activist who has fought many battles in the past and still has many to fight in the future.
Tinubu's last October speech was like the ones before it, a long tissue of lies to divert Nigerians, especially the youths form his wrong-headed policies which have further impoverished millions of Nigerians. It is very apparent in the speech that Tinubu has chosen the path of unbridled American capitalism for Nigeria, a concept that has not been debated in Nigeria as an ideology for the nation. Can a president choose an ideology for Nigeria? Shouldn't we have debated the ideology in the election campaign in the 2023 elections. It is now apparent why Tinubu evaded all public debates on the election. He did because he had nothing to offer in terms of the ideological direction for Nigeria. He was depending on the ideological stance of his half-baked IMF advisers, whereas for a developing and poor nation like Nigeria, nothing but a welfarist ideology can get us out of the woods. Before Tinubu will make the next move on Nigeria, he must subject the issue of an ideology to public debate and scrutiny. Already it is apparent that Tinubu is not working for Nigerians but the neo-colonialists institutions and his lies have to be repudiated.
Tunde Akande is both a journalist and pastor. He earned a Master's degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos