By Eddy Odivwri

Like many other Nigerians, I have been on a, so-to-say, siddon look mode in the last two years plus, hoping and believing that the gestation period for the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will soon be over, so we can begin to, not only see, but also enjoy the much-talked about dividends of democracy. I have been waiting and it is clearly looking like I am waiting for Godot. A Godot who will never come. Samuel Beckett, an Irish playwright, in the work, WaitingforGodot, had graphically painted the picture of the misery of mankind which essentially hangs on the expectation of a better life to be manifested by way of happiness, love, success, triumph, etc. That was what Godot represented in that work published in 1952.  But all through the length of the play, that hope remained not only a mirage, but utopian. That explains why one or the most famous lines from that work is “the tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep somewhere another stops” As the famous musician , Elton John noted, time is slow and sluggish  for those who are waiting. It is worse when they are idle. But time paces fast for those who are busy and happy. So, in Waiting for Godot, the people waiting for him to arrive were idle. It is twice torturous to be idle and be waiting for a helper who will never come. It multiplies the misery of the waiter(s).

This belief connects well with the declaration of Thomas Hardy, the author of The Mayor of Casterbridge who declared that, ‘happiness is an occasional episode in a general drama of pain”

It didn’t take more than a year after President Tinubu assumed office that mischief makers tweaked his name to be T-Pain. It was not for nothing. His economic policies were as choking as they were hurting.

It birthed the Ebinpawa mantra. It was not a gradual slide into hardship. It was sudden and automatic. Even before he assumed office, right on the swearing-in ground where he declared, “subsidy is gone!”, the flakes of fire were released on Nigerians. Before the swearing-in ceremony ended, filling stations had adjusted their pump prices. And that was the beginning of the pain.  Those who earn a living from pushing government propaganda have been singing the song of likening what Nigerians are going through to labour pain, stressing that it will be short-lived, after which mother and baby will be happy ever after.  They forget to acknowledge that if the pain gets unbearable and mismanaged, the pregnant mother could die.  More than two years after, Nigerians are still in that labour room undergoing excruciating pain.

 Before the advent of President Tinubu, Nigerians thought the administration of late President MuhammaduBuhari was pepperish and brutal. They didn’t know that Tinubu would make Buhari look like an angel. What Nigerians are currently going through resonates with that story in the Holy Book; where a king (Rehoboam) who succeeded his father declared to the people in a brash unmistakable terms that, “Whereas my father put a heavy yoke on you, I will add to your yoke, my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.” Let me stop there, but readers can check what happened to the Kingdom under King Rehoboam.

 Again, government propagandists are loud in claiming that the economy is picking up. They claim that the signs of dawn are afoot. The duo of Yemi Cardoso and  WaleEdun, the CBN Governor and Minister of Finance, respectively have been struggling to load Nigerians with some opaque statistics suggestive of an impactful economic policy by the Tinubu administration. What they do not tell Nigerians is that the “drugs” they are administering on the ailing Nigerian economy are likely to kill both the disease and the patient at the same time.

Were it not so, Nigerians will be seeing and experiencing the impact of a recovering economy. Even the least basics of life are yet tough. Very tough. With a bag of rice hovering around N80,000, a bag of cement over N10,000, grains at cut-throat prices, life is clearly turning nasty, short and brutish for many Nigerians. Food and shelter (the twin focus of the defunct NPN-led government of the second republic) are still a huge challenge for the majority of Nigerians who are now said to be living in multi-dimensional poverty. Those currently serving in government do not and will not feel the pain because the state largely picks their bills.

 So, for those who are keen on pushing government’s narrative, what are the indices of the gains we have had from the Tinubu administration?

 In Education, yes, more schools are springing up. More private schools and even private universities are almost everywhere. Good as that seems, it is a proof that more and more people are losing faith in the public schools. ASUU which had seemingly pressed the Pause button on frequent strikes, seems to be warming up for it again. Yes, the student loan scheme seems to be running despite the initial scandal that greeted the disbursement of the loan by the Nigeria Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) where only N28.8 billion was disbursed out of the N100 billion released for the scheme. The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) which promised a thorough investigation into the suspected fraud, is yet silent, four months after. In any case, what is the percentage of the beneficiaries of this loan compared to the number of students across board? For months, public schools were recently shut down in no other place but the Federal Capital Territory.

 The health sector has remained as pathetic and sickly as a patient in coma. Just last week, the Nurses and midwives nationwide called off a three-day warning strike. Workers go on strike when all is not well.

It is bad enough that our leaders have no faith in the Nigerian health sector which is why they (including the sitting President Bola Tinubu) always seek medical refuge in foreign lands, yet it is doubly bad that Nigerians who cannot afford foreign medical trips cannot get good medical service here in Nigeria. If there is trust and belief in the Nigerian medical sector, let the leaders stop travelling abroad for medical services. In the last two years, what has changed in our experiences within the health sector? Nothing, I dare say! It’s all motion, no movement.

 Or shall we look at the Gbesedepot which the Tinubu administration has landed us? At the end of June this year, Nigeria’s total debt profile rose to N149.39 tr ($97.24 billion). Two weeks ago, Mr President applied for another loan of $21.5 billion, which, as usual, the Senate approved with the ease with which a hot knife cuts through butter bulk. We don’t all have to be economists to know this is not healthy for an economy. Those who know better economic dynamics say many of these loans breach the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) of 2007. I once had an in-law whose Unique Selling Point (USP) was that he is good at borrowing money from the banks. He understands the nuances and processes and thus became an expert in obtaining bank loans. As feared, he became reckless with the monies he borrowed, living large and swimming in the whirlpool of a parvenu. To cut the story short, he ended up in prison, where he did some years within the prison walls.

 So back to Tinubu and Nigeria, what can we say we see being done with these huge loans? Just what? The FRA cited earlier requires that such foreign loans must be tied to infrastructure or human capital development. Beside the ill-conceived Lagos-Calabar coastal highway (billed to cost N15 trillion) what else is government doing with the loans? I don’t know of any highway in Nigeria that is smooth and safe.

The distance between Lagos and Benin-city which used to be covered in three or four hours, now takes as much as seven or eight hours.

The same ordeal is what travellers experience on the East-West road. The roads in the north are not better or safer. So which infrastructures are being developed? Even on the Lagos -Calabar highway project, to send a signal of activity and progress, the President hastily commissioned 30 kilometers out of the 700 kilometers of the project? Many Nigerians still do not understand the unholy haste that attended that “project commissioning”.

 But hey, is it not a choking irony that at a time the federal government is earning far more money, having removed subsidy, raised tariffs (with Customs surpassing its target even by middle of the year), Nigeria is still borrowing massively? The richer we are (or ought to be) as a nation, the more abject we become. Or is it the skill in accessing foreign loans (like my in-law) that makes many credit Mr President as an economic wizard?

 What is worse, Nigeria uses a whopping 25 per cent (a quarter) of its annual budget to service these loans. We are left with three-quarters.

If the entire budget cannot deliver dividends of democracy, is it three-quarters that will do? As they say, a heavy rain fell, the bucket was not full, is it the falling of the dew that will fill it?

 It is bad enough that our grandchildren will inherit these debts, but it is worse that we cannot exactly explain what we have borrowed these monies for.

Do our leaders in government live like people cruising on borrowed money? President Tinubu is living like a Hedonist, maximizing the quest for pleasure and leisure, at the expense of the withering economy. What with all the splurging, spending money like Corinthian sailors! Imagine how the presidency had poured wads of dollars on young sports women, in recent weeks. One would think we are truly that buoyant, as a country. They will not know those monies are borrowed.

Which good businessman borrows money from the bank and uses it or a larger chunk of it to “upgrade” himself or herself at the expense of the real project for which the loan was granted?

To remember that just few years ago, former President OlusegunObasanjo had lobbied the West and the Bretton Woods institutions, using the then Finance minister, NgoziOkonjo-Iweala, to wipe off all our debts, as a nation, makes it even more saddening. Today, we are back to indebtedness in the weight and volume never before heard of. I cannot but remember the avowal of King Rehoboam, “my father put a heavy yoke on you, but I will add to your yoke…”

Ok, let us look at the fight against fraud and corruption. What has been the result? The EFCC may have been prosecuting quite a number of suspects. But how many convictions have they recorded? There are celebrated cases that seem jinxed. I cannot but mention the case of HadiSirika, former Aviation minister, under ex President Buhari. That was a man (Sirika) who played on the collective intelligence of all Nigerians by claiming that he had launched a Nigerian airline. He hired a Turkish Air plane, got a roadside artist to brand it Nigerian Air . Got the plane to fly into Nigeria and after the razzmatazz that followed, the plane flew back to where it came from. And that was the end of the billions of Naira spent on the project, plus all the shady and phony contracts he awarded to his family members. No airline, no airplane..and the man is “Buggaing” around. Till date, we do not know the head or tail of his prosecution. He even got a traditional title appointment in his native Katsina state, last week.

We cannot forget the sudden judicial fortune that became the lot of former Ekiti State governor, Ayo Fayose, who was eventually discharged and acquitted of the N6.9 billion money laundry charges,  26 days after he paid a “personal visit” to President Bola Tinubu in his Lagos Bourdillon home, during the last Sallah holidays. For a case that had run for seven years, the Judge suddenly realizes that “ the prosecution failed to establish a prima facie case against him to warrant further defence”, and you wonder what the EFCC had been doing for seven years on that case.  So, case was closed and Fayose was declared free. Two weeks later, he (Fayose)—in what looks like a pay-back, appears on Channels Television Politics Today  to mount a strong campaign in support of Tinubu’s re-election bid, against the ethos and wish of his rival political party, the PDP! The import of that fortuitous judicial relief is not lost on us.

There are many such cases where fraud allegations against suspects are suspended indefinitely or even “killed”, when the suspects join the APC family, as Adams Oshiomhole, then National Chairman of the party, once declared. I do not know whether that explains the graveyard silence that has come over the huge fraud case against my former state governor, DrArthur  IfeanyiOkowa, after he decamped from the PDP (where he was a presidential running mate) to the APC, a few months ago.

Or what shall we say about the loud noise that followed the sacking of former Humanitarian Affairs minister, BettaEdu who was accused of many unsavoury financial heists. Yes, she got sacked, but till today, she was neither arrested nor prosecuted. Another case closed!

If we ignore every other governance metric, how can we neglect to talk about the all-important issue of security? Yes, I know the security challenge we have predates the Tinubu administration. But two years down the line, what is the situation? The frequent claims of massive neutralization (euphemism for killing) of bandits has not really reduced the fierce attacks of bandits and kidnappers across the country. Life remains largely unsafe. Little wonder there are several travel advisory against Nigeria, by other countries.  The recent pogrom in Plateau and Benue States, not forgetting the frequent killings in Zamfara State, Imo State, etc., are all a testimony of how decrepit our security has become.

 What shall we say about how “cheap” Nigeria has become in the comity of nations? So many and too many countries are treating Nigeria like a cheap trash. The exceptional angst of President Donald Trump of America is daily manifested in the “ass-hole” treatment he gives to Nigeria, what with the recent 15 per cent trade tariff slammed on Nigeria.  This cannot be too far from the fact that, for more than one year, all ambassadors have been sacked and none re-appointed. This has put immense pressure on the Ministry of External Affairs, especially the Nigerians in the Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM).

The United Arab Emirate (UAE), has, for nearly a year now placed restriction on Nigerians coming into their country. Several other countries have literally become somewhat hostile to the Nigerian green passport. We experienced the height of this diplomatic insult a week ago when even Ghanaians organized a “Nigerians-Must-Go” protest across major cities of Ghana. As they say on the streets, dem don see us finish. How tables turn!

 How can anyone end this review without peeping into what is cooking in the political kitchen of the president? Perhaps the greatest threat to the second term bid of Mr President is the bourgeoning coalition of opposition politicians, coalescing under the umbrella of the African Democratic Congress (ADC). Many have dismissed the coalition and its drivers as ”confused and clueless”. But the fact remains that the presidency appears jolted and losing some of its sleep. Many believe that “an experienced and political strategist like President Tinubu” cannot be atop the river and soap will enter his eyes, declaring further that “Tinubu is not Jonathan!” .

 With the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the judiciary seemingly in the kitty of the presidency, the supporters of the president conclude that the ADC’s effort to unseat the president can only end up as ruckus noise. Otherwise, why is it that more than two years after, the INEC has never been able to explain the length and breadth of what it meant by “technical glitches” that made the BVAS not to upload the electoral figures of only the presidential election in 2023. The confidence of the ruling party is understandably strong.

It is not for nothing. A lot of spanners are being thrown into the ADC camp, as well as any other opposition party. Several state governors are declaring grand support for President Tinubu with some even threatening unethical and undemocratic consequences against the opposition, like Gov Monday Okpebholo of Edo State.

In Rivers State, the weird and wonky scheme to uproot the opposition is panning out well. The Local Government election conducted by a democratically elected governor which was cancelled by the Supreme Court, after winners had been sworn in, is now about to be conducted again by a military man serving as Sole Administrator in the same state. The election will be supervised by the appointed RESEIC chair (Michael EkpaiOdey), somebody from Akwa-Ibom State, a kinsman of the Sole Administrator, Vice Admiral Ibok-EteIbas. Round pegs fitting into round holes!  Right now, there is no executive arm, there is no legislative arm, but the council elections are set to run at the end of this month.

It is interesting to note that the collective suit filed by the PDP governors challenging the state of emergency declared by President Tinubu in Rivers, has been sealed in judicial silence. All of these is so NyesomWike’s lackeys take charge of the grassroots and the cumulative resources that will be released thereof, just before the State of Emergency will expire. At the end of the day, these maverick strategists will realise that a throne is only a bench covered with velvet.

We have nearly two years away to test the political strength of both the coalition and the president. The much I can just say, at this point, is to re-echo that gentle counsel from the Holy Book which says, “he that thinketh he stands, take heed, lest he fall”

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