Some of these impetuous decisions, which Tinubu and his crumbled government will ultimately rue, have now quickly come to haunt him like a villain getting his just deserts in a literary work, especially in the drama genre of literature.
It is visible to the entire world that disaster presently parades through the length and breadth of Tinubu’s Nigeria with unmitigated impunity. Towering amongst this chaos is starvation, unleashed on the Nigerian people through ill-advised, ill-thought-out policies. Some of these policies, like the case of the subsidy removal on petrol, were done in such a reckless manner that Tinubu thought doing so would make him look like a superhero—the type you find in a fantasy novel.
Some of these impetuous decisions, which Tinubu and his crumbled government will ultimately rue, have now quickly come to haunt him like a villain getting his just deserts in a literary work, especially in the drama genre of literature.
This rashness, lack of sensitivity, unpreparedness, and ineptitude, which are embellished with executive arrogance, are the hallmarks of Tinubu’s crumbled government that have now ignited the ire of the people, as more and more citizens are finding it difficult to meet the skyrocketing cost of staying alive in a completely collapsed economy.
Tinubu’s government unashamedly announcing that it has doled out billions of Naira to state governors to supposedly purchase food for citizens in their states further underscores, emphatically, the “president’s” startling ignorance about governance. The statement is an embarrassment and the very antithesis of how to combat an economic crisis.
Where in North America or Europe, whom they are often quick to quote or make reference to when the context so pleases them, are citizens asked to converge in long and demeaning queues at state houses with bowls to receive money or food as a way of combating widespread economic crisis? Tinubu’s attempt to weaponise hunger and poverty and then systematically indoctrinate Nigerians into his mental Republic of Beggars, where survival must be at the mercy of his failed government, is unacceptable and must be resisted in the most resolute manner.
This is incredible! Which economic formula stipulates that inflation triggered by bad government policies can be quelled by giving out money or food to citizens? Please take notice that I am not implying that Tinubu and the Nigerian governors are by any means willing to give out anything to anyone, as they claim on the pages of newspapers and television. They are not perturbed in the slightest if Nigerians die of starvation or not. My argument is from the point of view that it still would have been economically counterproductive, assuming they were giving out these food items as they claim. But how could we possibly expect that a group of people who hoarded noodles and rice when they locked us in our houses in 2020 could even contemplate facilitating our survival in the midst of an epidemic that they deliberately created? Was it not the state governors who hoarded food items that were donated to the people by a third party? They even preferred that the food rot away whilst the people for whom it was meant died of starvation! What has changed in 2024 to propel anyone into believing that food meant for the people could be safe in the hands of Nigerian governors?
Meanwhile, for a man who exhibited unparalleled desperation prior to the election and did so with an unforgettable sense of entitlement, his prevailing ineptitude is so mind-boggling that it is beginning to make him look as though he was not aware that he would be president. It looks as if he was minding his business and buying corn on the street of his Lagos Kingdom one fine evening before some overzealous youth accosted and even had the effrontery of bundling him up. Then he opened his eyes and found himself inside the Presidential Villa! And so, to be sure he wasn’t in dreamland, he pinched himself the first, second, and third time before he realised that it was real that he had arrived in the Presidential Villa—installed as “president”! If this is not how Tinubu became Nigeria’s “president,” how is he so bankrupt of ideas that he thinks turning Nigerians into beggars with bowls is the best way of confronting the chaos that he created? This approach is not only disrespectful, but it also questions the very humanity of the people being subjected to such unutterable humiliation.
Nigerians do not need money or food from Tinubu! We are not beggars! As a government, the appropriate thing to do is to put proper policies in place that make it possible for people to thrive in their daily struggles for survival. Evidently, like bad policies, good policies touch people wherever they live in a country. This is what a responsible government does for its people, not the blatant manifestation of its incompetence by subjecting citizens to the ignominy of queueing for food items and money that they will never receive in the end. But such is the impertinence Nigerian politicians have subjected their citizens to since the attainment of independence—robbing them of every recognisable trait of humanity!
We may say that the recent tragedy that resulted in the avoidable deaths of Nigerians who were scrambling for “customs rice” was caused by the officers of that organisation, which is absolutely true. But we must not forget that the principal cause of those deaths was Mr Tinubu himself, who made surviving in Nigeria so difficult that the people considered contraband products as a lifeline for their survival! And now the quest for staying alive led to a stampede that resulted in a harvest of deaths. What a curious irony! The sanctity of human life has never been so debased.
But the most worrisome problem that is common amongst incompetent rulers like Tinubu is that even when they know that their inability to govern is igniting untameable chaos across the land, they never choose to walk away. Instead, they hang on to power against the collective wishes of the people they purport to govern. How could you sit there and watch the nation descend into flames because you want to be president at all costs, even in the face of failure?
If Tinubu is truly committed to extinguishing these rising flames of hardship that he provoked, he must first begin by publicly announcing the restoration of the petrol subsidy and immediately commence payment for the same. This should be followed by several other immediate measures. If he is willing to learn, I hope that the hasty and commando style with which he removed subsidy on petrol and how that decision has boomerang within less than a year will teach him a lesson in the future, namely that petrol is the mainstay of the Nigerian people and that it should never be tempered with under any circumstances, particularly with the brashness he exhibited at the Eagle Square on that ill-fated day. Almost a year later, Tinubu cannot account for the money he saved from removing subsidy, or what he has done with the savings!
I wrote the other day that the worst injury any government in the world can inflict upon itself is to unleash privation on the people it claims to govern. It is the quickest route to a revolution, and Tinubu will find out in the coming days or weeks if he refuses to take steps towards addressing this crucial problem. And solving this problem will not be achieved by throwing money at a crowd of “hungry people” or by asking citizens to queue with bowls for food, as though we were in a refugee camp.
Tinubu took Nigerians for granted, and now he has set the stage for a revolution against his own government! It is his own doing, and we shall not stop until sanity is restored. No going back!