23-10-2024.

That Nigeria is bleeding from the avarice of its rulers (that is what they are since they have no sympathy for majority of the citizens), and that most of traumatised Nigerians are suffering from extreme lack, want, poverty and hunger, are no longer news. That the Villa and some of the country’s unfeeling rulers keep telling us that all the NEGATIVE economic policies of the serving administration are only for a brief period of time not exceeding two years, is also no longer news too.

What is however NEW and NEWS WORTHY is the recent declaration by the World Bank that Nigerians would have to endure at least the next 15 years, for the unfriendly economic policies to turn the economy around into what would lead to the emergence of the country into a Sub Saharan economic giant. It is quite a long wait for the dying poor of the country to endure further.

Statements made by two key officials of the World Bank, in the person of the Vice President of the bank, Mr. Indermit Gill and the bank’s  Country Director, Dr. Ndiame Diop, kill any hope that poor Nigerians might have entertained of an immediate reprieve from the suffocating economic hardship that they are facing in the country. 

 The severely biting economic policies of the present administration appear to be a foreign import from the bad books of the World Bank, whose Vice President and Chief Economist, Mr. Indermit Gill, in an address at the 30th Nigeria Economic Summit (NES30) in Abuja, Nigeria, called the Central Bank Governor (CBN), Dr. Olayemi Cardoso, by name. He congratulated him for the country’s (seriously biting) economic policies, and urged him to continue in the same direction for the next 15 years, after which he believed that the patience would pay off for Nigerians. But the CBN Governor, was alleged to be one of Mr. President’s worst advisers, an allegation made on a television programme, by a lady who claimed to be the ‘daughter’ of the President.

As for the Country Director who spoke during the launch of the Nigeria Development Update (NDU) in Abuja a week later, the country’s economic team must not give up on the reforms, until 15 years from now, after which it is expected to show the result of the efforts.

Leaders in Nigeria nowadays never fight for the ordinary citizen, but for themselves. If you see them fight, it is to protect their turf or ‘right’, and they fight dirty for that. Take the case of Kano state. On so many fronts, the powers that be are fighting for its soul, which may translate to mean ‘the fight for the control of the state’s enormous resources’. There is a proxy battle of the former governors in the state, there is the battle of the emirship of Kano, and just now, the ongoing battle of supremacy between a master and his ‘boy’, engineered by some of the followers of both.

The fight between the different and various combatants is so complicated that to say who is fighting who, and who is friends with who, is as unnecessary as it is unfortunate. Unnecessary, because it is a power tussle between the ‘big’ guys, but unfortunate because the ‘big’ guys would use the ordinary people to engage in the physical combat on their behalf.

One of the combatants is known to have been a strong advocate for the suffering of the ordinary Nigerian. He had been calling for the complete removal of the oil subsidy in the country. Now his wish has come to pass, he scurried to his foreign paymasters, for a pat on the back for a job nicely done, and (not improbable) another dirty job, leaving his suffering (supporters) to their unfortunate fate.

As for President Tinubu, the word ‘removal’ appears to be his middle name, removing one subsidy after another, resulting in tough times for most Nigerians since assuming power on May 29th last year (15 months ago). The removal of subsidy on petrol was followed in rapid succession by the hike in tariffs of electricity, hike in taxes, on the ill advise of the greatest White suprematist and the world’s biggest farmer and manufacturer of Genetically Modified Crops (GMC) foods, (designed to surreptitiously reduce the world’s population of none White people), who physically attended Nigeria’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, the infamous billionaire, Bill Gates. 

Many of his fellow White co-travellers were caught on camera during their evil meeting on how not to allow Africa to harness, for its own use, the abundant land and underground resources God has endowed it with.

And from 1-11-2024, Nigerians would have to pay more for their driver’s licence and the papers of their vehicles, whatever their make may be. Unless they are not going to put them on the road, an ugly situation that was forcibly taken by many citizens because of the prohibitive cost of petrol in the country.

But Mr. President has severally advised his fellow countrymen to exercise more patience with the economic reforms his administration has forced on them. In early September of this year, he said to Nigerians that:

“We have taken bold steps to reform the microeconomic environment. Our focus is on restoring confidence in the Nigerian economy through measures aimed at reducing inflation, stabilising the foreign exchange market and improving fiscal management.

Speaking through the Vice President at the 17th Annual Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) Banking and Finance Conference held in Abuja, President Tinubu added that “though painful in the short term, the removal of fuel subsidies is designed to free up budgetary resources for critical investment in infrastructure and social services”.

His Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Senator Abubakar Atiku Bagudu also told a meeting between the Federal Government officials and representatives of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) in Abuja, following widespread economic hardship in the country, that “The Bola Tinubu administration has made bold choices that, challenging, are necessary for the economic recovery of the country”.

But majority of those in positions of authority at both federal and state levels, do not walk their talk, even one little bit. They advise the people to be patient with the biting economic reforms of the present administration, which they always say are temporary, but they go on to live and lead an extremely ostentatious lifestyle, worthy of people who have no worries whatsoever in the world.

The Nigerian government not long ago bought the President a new aircraft, a new yacht and a new official car, all from the US, although his Chief of Staff and the immediate past Speaker of the House of Representatives, Right Honourable Femi Gbajialla ridiculously told the world that the three new rides were bought by Mr. President from his personal money. And the seat of power, Villa, was reported by a national newspaper that one of the official vehicles of the President (a Toyota jeep) had its four tyres changed at a huge sum of $200,000 ($50,000 for each). And that many more of such tyres were ordered and kept at the Villa by a suspicious company whose account the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) described as ‘dormant’.

And each ‘elected’ member of the National Assembly (NASS) smiles to the bank with nothing less than N500 million in salary and allowances, every year, according to a member of the House of Representatives. This is not counting the millions that they additionally make from their ‘oversight’ functions. But big members of the NASS, like the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives and their deputies, only God knows the humongous amount they get every year.

For Mr. President, Nigeria would appear to be one big laboratory from which to again employ some of the time tested failed economic policies (forced on the country) of the almighty Western Powers-controlled World Bank. Everything that the bank says or does in the country is never questioned by the current leadership, no matter its catastrophic consequences on the citizenry, because that is the aim it was programmed to achieve, anyway.

 

For long, Nigeria has been the country the country feared for the enormous potential it possesses to rival the West in all aspects of economic development and dominance in the world, due to the (apparent) sincere assistance the country receives from Russia, China and some Eastern countries. The fact that has made the West more determined to be aggressively against the development of the country, and as well mad at the nations assisting Nigeria.

And, according to the Sunday Punch Newspaper, the President and his Vice undertook 41 trips across 26 countries in their 17 months in office in a country whose majority of the population lives in abject poverty and misery that were caused by their obsequious abeyance to the order of the World Bank. The Vice President is soon to represent his boss at the annual jamboree called the Commonwealth Head of Governments Meeting (CHOGM) in Apia, Samoa Island, a small Island that should ginger an unwanted memory for Nigerians.

It may be worthy for Nigerians to, in the future, avoid ‘electing’ or allowing people who studied or stayed for a long time in the West, to impose themselves on fellow compatriots as  ‘elected’ President, Vice President, Senate President or the Speaker of the House of Representatives. This is because they appear compromised, and, for all the compatriots know, such people may be anything but what they claim to be, for reasons that only them and those whose  ‘dirty’ bidding they are doing, know about. But they could be given any other appointments, from ministerial positions.

The leadership of the nation’s security services, sated with too much illegally allocated finances, sees itself as tool to be used and abused (as is mostly done) by the President, not the protection of the citizens with whom Commonwealth their respective organisations are funded. They always order for the immediate protection or cardoon of the offices, residences and any other places wanted by the nation’s leaders, when they feel real or imagined threat around them.

I cannot imagine a security chief in Nigeria voluntarily resigning from his top job because he ‘felt’ it was his failure that an opposition party Presidential candidate was shot at a campaign rally. The US head of the Secret Service, Ms Kimberly Cheatle threw in the towel and resigned from her envious job because of the failed assassination attempt on the Republican Party Presidential flag bearer, Donald Trump.

If it had happened on these shores, the head of the security agency in charge of protection of the candidates, would not only remain on his chair as if nothing had happened, he might even accuse the candidate of being responsible for the shooting. It had happened when a minister in this country accused some 14 job applicants, for being responsible for their own deaths. They died in a stampede during an interview organised by an agency under his ministry.

The resignation of the head of the US Secret Service Chief tells us that top government officials in Nigeria have a long way to go in being responsible enough to take responsibility for the failure of their office, even if that may mean leaving their office for good, as had happened in Kenya, early this year when the minister of power voluntarily resigned s a result of one day electricity supply to the capital. Although it was due to the failure of the government, which, despite the minister’s efforts to ensure that payment for the electricity supplied was made to the (electricity) company, he went ahead to resign after the payment to the company, in spite of appeals to him from many quarters not to do so.

Imagine a country as big and as enormously potentially rich as Nigeria still battling with the problem of supplying the people with sufficient electricity, when its little neighbours are able to satisfactorily provide the service to most of their people. Nigeria, no thanks to the greed and the I-don’t-care-attitude of the leaders to the plight of the citizens, has become what is described as  ‘big -for-nothing’, the so called giant of Africa.

Poverty and malnutrition are killing poor Nigerians gradually, but the wish of the political leadership is to amass  ‘limitless’ money, regardless of how of it was  ‘made’. Only the untiring assistance, rendered by the large-hearted members of the business elite, keeps some Nigerians from taking early exit from the ‘vicious, furious and corrupt environment they daily confront in the country.

Meanwhile, it would appear that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has finally agreed with the DEMAND of some unapologetic Nigerians from the southern part of the country, particularly among the Yoruba and Igbo tribes, who want the northern part of the country EXICED from Nigeria, because they perceived the area as ‘parasitic’ in the nation. I arrived at the conclusion because of the persistent breakdown of the National Grid, which appears to affect the northern part of the country all the time. In the last one week, the grid has collapsed four times due to alleged sabotage by criminals. And it has suffered from the fate 11 times in 2024, a never before heard phenomenon in the country. Most of the north is without electricity for five days today (Wednesday 23rd, 2024).

Let us hear directly from Mr. President about the frequent lopsided collapse of the National Grid.

May God save His sincere servants from the ill machinations of the evil ones, whoever and wherever, they may be in the world.

Malam Malumfashi wrote from Katsina.