1-11-2024.

Mr. Bayo Onanuga, the Special Adviser (SA) to the President on Information and Strategy, has a very tasking job, trying to rationalise the irrational economic policies of his boss, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

The Presidential aide, Mr. Bayo, as a Nigerian living in Nigeria, must be deceiving nobody but himself, if he thinks there is one person who is unaware of the pervasive corruption in high places and the extreme poverty and hunger in the country as a result. That is, of course, minus the super Nigerians at the Villa, at the federal cabinet, at the National Assembly (NASS), where the ‘elected’ members ‘work tirelessly’, offices of top government officials and the places of top political actors in or out of government.

But that is only half the story, as the SA Information and Strategy, who used to be a diehard opponent of Senator Tinubu, but now his born-again (unapologetic) supporter, appears to be crying more than the bereaved, in blindly carrying out his impossible assignment of selling his principal and his ill advised and never-ending hostile economic policies, which result in a very bitter pill for the citizens, particularly the less privileged, to swallow.

But for the fear of being driven away from the table of the bountiful feast on the national cake, to which he was invited by Mr. President, Mr. Bayo would have probably been a regular guest of some television or radio programmes as a political opponent, or some kind of a pundit , talking about the extremely negative economic interventions of the present administration in the country. As did the President in 2014, when someone else was the number one citizen in the country.

The SA Information and Strategy would have been asking the President to remember the many negative remarks he had made in the past about the supposed misrule of past leaders. And in the event that Mr. President claims not to remember the remarks, or even making them for that matter, fearing that the watcher, listener or reader would take him for a lier, he would probably produce the recordings of the remarks, where the President said that:

“Those who could improve this situation for the good of all of us do not allow the opportunity to make things better for us. They make it better for themselves, for their comfort their families. Cronyism is prevailing today.

“Our rulers in Abuja and across some of their states. You know what they say to us when they REMOVED SUBSIDY and we said NO. Hunger is increasing and they say ‘so what? Unemployment is a curse, they say yes we know. Why are the people hungry, and they say ‘let them face death’. That is what is in Abuja of today.

“The current wave of DARKNESS, let the nation do the impossible. What it does is to make poverty and the erosion of justice inevitable. We have gathered at this hour, in this place to put an end to the national CORRUPTION and CORRUPTION. We have assembled here today to bring a new day, a new Nigeria. Today, the Nigerian are decent and hardworking people. They are equally long suffering, they tolerate for too long. Just because they are long suffering does not mean that they be forced to suffer until death comes.

“We are people who have had enough of excuses. Our people have had enough of nothing. The current government’s trademark is to throw empty words at our problems, as if doing nothing will cause our problems to leave for sheer boredom. Unemployment increases, industrialisation we have nothing, refineries nothing is working, electricity they lie.

“If this is the government’s idea of transformation, we will have none of it, we should have none of it because before we say ‘the government of slow motion’, now it is the government of no motion at all. If they want to stand still at the bus stop or train station and be stagnated without property, they have their right to do so, and we have our right to kick them out. They know they are stealing from our children 

tomorrow for lack of inspectors in education, they are still embezzling the benefits of hardworking Nigerians, including our grandfathers. They are stealing the funds, the treasury, not even leaving some coins for us to work with. Let them be out, out NOW”.

He would also be reminding Mr. President that early in his administration, he had told the Nigerian electorate not to reelect him for a second term if he did not provide the country with electricity during his first term in office. From all indications, it is looking like the President is going to eat his words, because there is no willingness from him to make good on his promise. 

The North needs no convincing about that, because 12 days without power to most parts of the region looks more like a wilful action. Even when the power returned, it is only haphazard, because the electricity would be supplied for some hours below ten (10) and go off for the rest of the time in one day.

Although the security agencies, especially the Police and the D Department of State Security (DSS) in Nigeria have always considered, and performed, the protection of the President, his immediate family and the privileged few, at NO time during past administrations was even an attempt made to turn the country into a Police State. But NOW is the case, and poor citizens are not finding it funny at all.

The draconian measure or the heavy handed approach employed by the present government to remain in power at all costs, proves its increasing unpopularity and incompetence in managing the country. This is a disturbing turn of events that should give the sincere public commentators a constant talking point, including the SA Information and Strategy, was he not among the free renters at the moment.

A former Acting but substantive Deputy Publicity Secretary of the All Nigerian Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Timi Franks, believes that the President’s cost-cutting measures were nothing but deceitful, in that only himself, his family, the Vice President and other top politicians in the country live handsomely on the fat of the land, while the rest of the poor citizens are told to bear with the hard situation until it gets better in the near future. 

From where do the billions of naira spent in the ‘renovation and maintenance’ of the Villa come, and from where do the millions ‘donated’ by many of the leaders at both federal and state levels, if Nigeria is broke to the extent of having no money to waste? But the over burdened poor people who go to great lengths to put food on the table for the family, and do other necessary things, are constantly told to make sacrifices for the nation.

Or the fact that one of the official cars of the President had all four tyres replaced at astaggering cost of $200,000 (US). And not long ago, the country purchased for him a brand new plane, a brand new yacht and a brand new American car and sponsor the many globe trotting he and his Vice regularly undertake. I hope the SSA Social Media is not amnesic about past events no matter how unpalatable they might be.

Or the billions of naira given to the ‘lawmakers’ monthly, in a country that has ‘no money to waste’. Many of  the so called lawmakers are benchwarmers and lawbreakers, as one power-drunk member of the House of Representatives, (Dis)Honourable Alex Ikwechegh of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) threatened to make a taxi driver ‘disappear’. But for the outcry that followed the incident, the lawmaker would have gotten away with his bravado. All these and many more, Mr. Bayo would have wanted their answers, if there are any.

There are so many ills with this government, but the most eloquent vocal ‘human rights campaigners’ are nowhere to be found at the time their vociferous rhetorics and criticisms are most needed.

May God punish all unjust rulers with the same calamities that they visit on their citizens, wherever they maybe in this world, before they meet Him to explain how they ruled the people.

Malam Malumfashi wrote from Katsina.