How Tinubu’s grab of ECOWAS Chairmanship cannot grant him legitimacy or help Nigeria
…….Only transparent Presidential Tribunal ruling and healing the Nigerian Economy can
By Dr Orefo Nnamdi Onochie
On July 7, 2023, Nigerians were informed that Bola Ahmed Tinubu, was headed to Guinea Bissau, to attend the scheduled 63rd Extraordinary Summit of the Council of Heads of State of the 15-member West African Economic Community States, ECOWAS, holding in Guinea Bissau. After a lack-luster participation in the Paris Conference on Global Financial Stability hosted by Emmanuel Macron, the Nigerian delegation, embarrassed by the apparent reluctance, and refusal to participate in scheduled Media interviews by Tinubu, departed Paris directly to Bissau, for the ECOWAS Summit. The plan for Tinubu to become Chairman of ECOWAS had been raised during hurried visits by two West African Presidents, shortly after Tinubu took office. The proposal was to grant immediate legitimacy to the embattled newly sworn in Nigerian President, to boost, as well as anchor his position, as a readily acceptable leader in the West Africa region: same as offering Tinubu legitimacy by foreigners who were not voters during the 2023 Presidential election. What favours followed and accrued to the other Heads of States, who grudgingly acceded to and yielded that Tinubu should become ECOWAS Chairman, so immediately, when Muhammadu Buhari, his predecessor had become Chairman of the ECOWAS Summit, only in July 2018. There were several other entitled Heads of State, who were bypassed, for the position to get to Tinubu, and naturally they had to be paid off, since the Nigerian leader very desperately wanted the Chairmanship.
Did Tinubu merit the honour, and position? Is that position at this moment worth coveting by a Nigerian politician still fighting for his political life? Why did Tinubu want that position, what special benefits accrued from it to him personally, or to Nigeria at this stage of Nigeria’s history?
Wiser to begin with Nigeria: at this juncture, or even at the best of times, the rocky turbulence of Nigeria’s 2023 election debacle is one certain reason a stable politician would have wished not to super-impose himself on the ECOWAS. So close to the rowdy instabilities of Buhari’s 8-years of divided and impoverished Nigeria, a self-imposed stay away from ECOWAS duties and responsibilities would have enabled such a politician to stabilize Nigeria, before seeking to unify and build up economically disparate regional neighbors. The newer menace of France, and US/Chinese aggressive incursions into ECOWAS countries closest to Nigeria, and the Gulf of Guinea, is indeed more compelling than seeking for political favors from competitors, for whom political tragedies sooner than later provide sources of trage-comical distractions of epic value. Better to be humble and serene, than to be rude and arrogant! Firmness and clarity from Nigeria, would always bode well for her and her sometimes stubborn regional neighbors. Are the professional Nigerian diplomats not reading the regional political barometers well, or are they lacking in the courage to counsel their new boss firmly?
BATTLES GALORE…… NEVER ENDING POLITICAL BATTLES
For Bola Ahmed Tinubu, embattled from very early in the political campaigns for the Presidential nomination of the APC, his party, then on to the hostile vagaries of his personal failing health, the rather impossible terrain of another imbalanced Yoruba occupation, installation and imposition in Aso Rock. In addition, to the rude accusations of bribing INEC, it’s Chairman Mahmoud Yakubu, spending up to N1 Trillion Naira, total, to purchase the Nigerian Presidential seat in 2023? Funding the Presidential primaries, settling APC Convention delegates all in US Dollars, out-spending Buhari/APC to defeat fellow Presidential Aspirants, former Senate President Ahmed Ibrahim Lawan, APC anointed presidential Nominee, and Chibuike Rotimi Amechi, the Sheikh of Rivers State Nigeria, and former Transport Minister and the Chinese loans Czar of Buhari: Tinubu’s funding of the 2023 Presidential campaign in the milieu of Emefiele’s Naira re-design, scarcity, and his eventual resorting to US Dollars on Election Day to buy voters nationally instead of relying on his traditional Bullion vans: Tinubu’s inventing of INEC’s glitches and stoppage of IREV electronic transmission of only the Presidential election results: overcoming the shock of Nigerians on his most early declaration as winner of the 2023 Presidential election: master-minding the orchestration of disenfranchisement of Igbos or Igbo-look-alikes in Lagos during the Governorship elections to avert a second election defeat in his own Lagos Kingdom: finally ensuring that Buhari swore him in on May 29, 2023.
Tinubu has had a hat filled with impossible works. He threw Nigeria into a tail-spin of new economic recession and inflationary surge on his first 30-minutes at work, by a shocking removal of the petrol subsidy, which was an 8-year nightmare for Buhari even to his last days in office, when subsidy removal was cleverly passed on to the next government. By that early Tinubu faulty move, the consequences have continued to haunt his government. Not well grounded on the ghost of energy politics and pricing in Nigeria, he has worked into a conundrum that is the beginning of the black tempestuous results of the 180-days in which litigations against his swearing-in must be decided by the Presidential Election Tribunal, as well as the Supreme Court of Nigeria. The fireworks in his factory is way too much, for him to add other extraneous incontemplatables such as the ECOWAS Chairmanship into it.
The works appear like that of a man or woman who has no parents, wife, husband or relatives, who care, or who have the heart to advice him: or one to whom good counseling is akin to cowardice. He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day!
BENEFICENCE FOR WHOM?
Indeed, where is the benefit to Bola Ahmed Tinubu in all the scenarios painted above? Nigerian soldiers, deplored as part of the ECOWAS Stabilisation Force in Guinea-Bissau listened to Tinubu, a quarter-hour after his arrival in Bissau. He thanked them for making Nigeria proud, stating clearly that Nigeria will defend DEMOCRACY every where, and anywhere. His legal team at the Abuja Presidential Election Tribunal had certainly briefed him that the Final Address to defend his Presidential standing is predicated on the blackmail of the Judges that any ruling against his current presidential position will be tantamount to inflicting ANARCHY on Nigeria.
Question: is this level of speech or opinion on the defense of DEMOCRACY, the same that Tinubu spoke to the Nigerian soldiers stationed in Bissau? Should Tinubu not remove the wood in his own eyes before offering to blow out dust from someone else’s eyes? Which Nigerians will be opportuned to defend DEMOCRACY in Nigeria? Who will perpetrate the ANARCHY should the Tribunal proclaim and make their rulings based on the rules and laws of evidence, logic and the truth of the matter presented to them? How has Tinubu defended DEMOCRACY in Lagos State, Nigeria, since March 25, 2023, during the Governorship election? Assuming that the soldiers in Nigeria follow Tinubu’s statements in Bissau on July 8, 2023, to defend democracy in Nigeria, if a negative ruling is made against his presidential position, would such soldiers be justified or court-marshaled? Rushing to be made ECOWAS Chairman was an unwise choice and decision by Tinubu, his political friends and the Nigerian diplomatic officers whose statutory duty it was to courageously tell truth to power: if they were shunned because they gave good advice, then Nigeria would be proud of them. Certainly Lateef Jakande, in his hay days as Governor of Lagos State, would not have, and did not step out of Lagos, or Nigeria, for once, in his more than 4-years of being Governor. No one can predict the future!
NIGERIAN ECONOMY, ENERGY AND PETROL POLICY BEFORE DECEMBER 31, 2023
Admitting that the Nigerian economy is currently in tailspin is the right preparatory effort to protect the highly uncertain future that Nigeria will most likely go through from now until December 31, 2023. Upon the removal of petrol subsidy on May 29, 2023, all the malevolent current signs became evident. Governments around the country began cutting work days, from three to five, that being the surest way to reduce productivity, and increase the chances of a recession of the economy: transport cost increases clearly would sky jump general inflation, and the circle continues. What is the first economic responsibility of government, is it not to preserve and protect the highest level and standard of living of the populace? Is it not to enact policies that will reduce inflation, stabilize the cost of living and ensure that prices of foods, goods and services remain stable in order not to wipe out the financial savings of workers, and to keep them prosperous? Is there any way that the actions of the nascent Tinubu government have approximated or resembled any of the economic policy objectives of government set forth above? The opposite has clearly been the case.
Tinubu’s petrol subsidy removal will be, and is already becoming the undoing of his government. The effects of the policy on the economy and social environment will be incalculable, and very negative: on July 18, 2023, the NNPCL, petrol net importer of Nigeria, announced another petrol price per liter increase of N620-650 Naira. From the last multiple double step increases of May 29, 2023, of first N330.00 to N550.00 Naira, per liter. Subsequently, there was a surreptitious announcement, very quickly denied, that as from July 1, 2023, another price increase would lift petrol prices to N700.00 per liter. The immediate public outcry led to the denial and later suspension of that price increase, ultimately accomplished on July 18, 2023.
Arithmetically what these official multiple triple prices meant is that within an interval of 50-days, the price increase in petrol had gone from N220.00 to N650.00 per liter. That is an approximate 230% increase in price. Such an economic price phenomenon has never happened before in the peace-time history of Nigeria: even in Biafra, in war time, the highest recorded price increase in petrol was less than 40%, and through local refining and supply, the Biafran authorities stabilized the pricing and availability process. Such volatility as was experienced in Biafra was never experienced on the Nigerian side. In Tinubu’s epoch, the latest price increase has become so adverse, that local transport cost on Keke rides rose on July 18, 2023, at close of work, from N300.00 to N400.00, on a medium distance trip of 8-kilometers, from Asaba city-center to suburban Okpanam outskirt, an unusual immediate price increase of 25%. How would an average wage earner or worker support and afford such expenditure in a period of 20-work days in a month? Cost of transport to work on a daily basis, is only one component of the expenses such a wage earner will undertake in one month. The general cost of living index in Nigeria will be very harsh in the coming months, from now up to December 31, 2023.
WRECKING THE NIGERIAN ECONOMY: LINKAGE BETWEEN PRICE OF PETROL, SKY ROCKETING INFLATION AND HIGHER COST OF LIVING
Speculation is again rife that the Tinubu government is going increase monthly minimum wage to N200,000.00 Naira. Having discredited themselves by hiking their own salaries by 114%, (more than double the current salary), and Senators in Nigeria being paid total N29 Million Naira as monthly take home pay, Tinubu wants to recklessly appease, bribe and placate workers by hiking workers monthly wage. Then the pleas for patience and palliatives: even N12,000.00 monthly payment to 12 million Nigerians, will not be one quarter equivalent to the average rise in general cost of living. Schemes such these are affronts on the intelligence and sensitivity of humble Nigerians: confront the rising cost of living and forget about wage increases that are not effective in dealing with the rising cost of living. It is even more insulting to mention palliatives, the type Emefiele was paying out to the Aso Rock mafia on a monthly basis that Nigerians never received. Or palliatives of the Covid-19 period, which enriched only politicians, Governors and their families. Where is all this taking Nigeria? Tinubu may inadvertently be wrecking the Nigerian economy: where will the country be at the end of all this? Constant unending increase in price of petrol which affects cost of transportation, other goods, especially food items because fresh farm produce are moved daily to and from markets.
The cost of energy which includes electricity tariff, is the major driving force of production in the Nigerian or any economy for that matter. Hike in electricity tariff is also a policy that is yet to be implemented; to increase the tariff on electricity, will further increase the woes of the families. All these increases in the cost of petrol, other energy tariff such as electricity, diesel, aviation jet fuel and the attendant effects on general cost of living is a pillage on the Nigerian economy. How will this end? Where is Nigeria headed to, who can bail this cat, and how is it to be bailed? Is Tinubu not fast losing the capacity to control the consequences of his financial and economic policies? What additional social consequences such as banditry, kidnapping and civil disobedience may result from these giant missteps? How close is the country approaching the unforeseen, unforetold stage of # END SARS that riddled Southern Nigeria, especially the South west, in 2020?
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION TRIBUNAL JUDGEMENT AND THE SUPREME COURT
Arising from the questions of legitimacy and credibility of the Tinubu government, evidence revealed during the 2023 presidential election litigation, and trials, has shaken and shocked the Nigerian populace. The question has been, will the expected rulings, that of the Presidential Tribunal, be in line with public opinion? Should the expected public opinion or expectations be dashed, what will be the resultant effects? These scenarios of politics and the consequences of an economy on tail spin, means that the instability in the country is such that will shake up the foundations of both the government and the State. As a tool of impact, direction, propaganda and blackmail, the conclusion of the Tinubu legal defense team at the Presidential election Tribunal, was to warn the Judges not to upturn the applecart by removing Tinubu in his present position, or a making a ruling, ordering a rerun: the resultant prediction of the Tinubu legal team is that there will be ANARCHY in the country. How real, truthful and feasible is this threat, and who should be believed? We must wait and see!
ECOWAS CHAIRMANSHIP AND NIGERIA AS A CREDIBLE REGIONAL FORCE
To piggy back to the run and grab of the ECOWAS Chairmanship by Bola Ahmed Tinubu, with a foreboding that the Tribunal ruling may not be in his favor, is way too risky a route to ply. Caution was very seriously called for. On the other hand, if Tinubu has been piling issues, wahalas (local parlance for unnecessary troubles), and vulnerabilities on himself, and Nigeria, with all the fake and obviously proven rigging, where would the Nigerian standard be? Is it a justification that you can corruptly buy anything you desire, with money, in Nigeria, DOMINATE and OVERWHELM the entire country, turning them into serfs, for yourself, your family and ethnic group? It is laying the final foundation for the collapse of the entity. The future is ripe, and pregnant, and some thing must give!
SOLUTION
Herein are solutions for Nigeria, and for no one else:
1. With respect to the 2023 Presidential election, acceding early and publicly, before the Tribunal’s judgment, to a re-run between only 2-Tickets, Obi- Datti & Tinubu-Shettima, by the Tinubu Team, will usher the Goodluck Jonathan 2015 concession and solution that brought national relief and international legitimacy to the democracy of Nigeria, and ensured that the blood of Nigerians were not spilled to assuage the political ambitions of any individual, or groups, ethnic or religious.
2. Suspend Mahmoud Yakubu and the INEC senior officials and nominate two female retired non corrupted State Judges to Co-Chair INEC to the 90-days of the re-run date, to ensure that the BVAS and IREV portals will electronically conclude the 2023 Presidential rerun.
3. Round Table Nigeria’s Captains of Industry, and negotiate across the board REDUCTION of Cost of Living, Goods and Services, by 32% in the first instance, and heal the hardship and suffering in the land.
4. Reduce URGENTLY the liter price of Nigerian petrol to N75.00 and defend this price policy: the PAPPRA pricing template of petrol is where the devils in this detail can be cured, and this goal can be achieved.
5. Peg the exchange rate of the Naira against the US Dollar, at N92.00 to $1.00 USD, and ensure that non professional Bankers head the CBN for the next 20-years, to rehabilitate, sanitize and stabilize the monetary environment.
6. FREE EDUCATION and MEDICAL SERVICES for all Nigerians, from kindergarten to the tertiary, fund both sectors, education and health, fully: UNILAG has just raised tuition by 400%, Senators in Nigeria have monthly N29 million Naira take home pay, and Emefiele is alleged to have stowed N89 trillion Naira away: the next # END SARS will be unstoppable, and will be the final FINALE.
7. Pay upfront for new 7-zonal electricity generation plants, deliverable through bonded international insurance, in 24-months, to increase electricity generation and supply.
8. ZERO CORRUPTION policy, and enlarge the Nigerian Bench to ensure trial cases are concluded in 3-7 months, and no Judge or Magistrate is allotted more than 300-case files annually.
9. ZERO FOREIGN loans, renegotiate outstanding loans payments globally, and balance Nigeria’s budgets.
Very minimal opportunity is left to heal the country, and save it from the impending already acknowledged ANARCHY by the 2023 Tinubu presidential tribunal team. A good stitch in time saves further tearing!
MMESOMA EJIKEME AND TOBI AMUSAN: THE MOST VULNERABLE AMONGST US HAVE NOT MADE US PROUD
In my early calling for JAMB, to make full public disclosure of all information it had against Mmesoma Ejikeme whose 2023 JAMB result was claimed to be extraordinary, I only wanted JAMB’s situation not to be like INEC’s 2023 Presidential election result. But it quickly fell on Mmesoma’s Anambra State government which undertook very thorough investigations and informed Nigeria that the teenager had hidden skeletons. Even before Mmesoma’s apologies to JAMB and the rest of us, wore down, the shock of the accusations of enhancement drugs use by Tobi Amusan hit us even harder. As a former young athlete and huddler myself, I watched Tobi bring pride to Nigeria by huddling past the rest of the world, in Eugene, Oregon, USA, last summer. It was at a time when Muhammadu Buhari, the APC, Atiku Abubakar and the PDP, were at their worst, to bring Nigeria to where she is today. In seeing the young adult Tobi wrap the Nigerian green-white-green flag around her shoulder and neck, I believed that our younger ones will lift up all our peoples where they must be: being better than all the rest of the world.
As it became clear that Mmesoma Ejikeme first, lied fraudulently about her 2023 JAMB result, then Tobi Amusan was willfully using drugs that enhanced her huddling performance and prowess, I have been so diminished and reduced, because our most vulnerable ones, have failed to make us proud. My question is: how can the younger ones not do yahoo-yahoo and fraud, when their parents and elders, spend billions of US Dollars, and trillions of Naira, to be Presidential Aspirants, and to buy the 2023 Nigerian Presidency? From Aso Rock, Buhari groomed Godwin Emefiele to succeed him, except that Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his Boys, publicly and politically castrated Emefiele out of the race: but all of them were fully gourd with trillions of Naira of public funds, ready to purchase the 2023 Presidency of Nigeria. Emefiele and Buhari put Nigerians through hell at Christmas 2022, and New Year 2023, to hide away Naira notes, yet it was called Naira re-design. Tinubu was ready as achilles heels, and revealed to Nigerians how only one person can hijack N89 Trillion Naira. Had the Boys of the South West news media not joined in throwing out the green tie Central Banker from the 2023 presidential slogging, it certainly would have been the same tale of who spends the highest, buys up Aso Rock Villa, and installs all his “Boys and Girls” therein, and still pretends to be a Defender of Democracy. Why are we ashamed of Mmesoma Ejikeme, and Tobi Amusan? It is the raw thieving and rigging that we taught them that they have been putting to consummate use, yet we pretend to suffer the highest in shame. We sow gripe, and look to harvest grapes. Nigeria is sunk! We have only a very slim chance left…….. going, going…….like Sudan, and South east Nigeria, the fire is still burning, and the guns are still exploding, and we are told more guns are still being smuggled into the country, and the smugglers are dutifully shown to the public. Where and when will all this cease?
This piece was written by Dr Orefo Nnamdi Onochie, Chairman/Convener NACOPPIN NIGERIA 2023.
