5-11-2024.

The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Commander in Chief, Bola Ahmed Tinubu appeared to be on a death wish, or self destruct, mission, which are looking very likely to consume his 2027 ambition for a second term in office as the number one citizen of the country. His many anti people reforms  and counting,  are going to work against him in 2027, no matter the kind of rigging ploys that might be employed to return him to power for a second term.

Only yesterday(Monday, 4-11-2024) Minister of Finance, Mr. Adebayo Olawole Edun told the new Minister of State for Finance, Dr. Doris Uuzoka-Anite that there was ‘no reversal of the economic policies of the administration’, especially the removal of the subsidy on petroleum and the foreign exchange assistance on the naira.

It is still on the minds of Nigerians, including the not so knowledgeable yours sincerely, that the World Bank had stated that Nigeria’s economic reforms would go on for the next fifteen (15) years before they yield results. It means fifteen more years of suffering for the rest of the citizens of Nigeria.

Many negative remarks from outside the country, such as Niger, where a concerned citizen of that country prayed for Nigeria to get good leaders, Ghana, where a Pastor called Nigeria as the most corrupt country in the world, the United Kingdom (uK), where a lady sitting in a motor vehicle blamed ‘the idiot Nigerians’ for ‘electing’ Tinubu as President, and in the United States (US), where Nigerians respondents to a pop poll where several of them said they were not coming back to the country because of the current poverty in the country ‘caused’ by President Tinubu’s administration (even as he, his family, aides, NASS  ‘elected’ members and top politicians, live in obscene affluence). ‘Corruption’ and ‘bad governance’ are two other reasons the respondents gave.

Most of the negative remarks were directed at the Northern Region, which is accused of hoisting former Governor of Lagos State and ‘activist’ on the nation. The region’s docile electorate were told to  ‘elect’ the ‘performing’ Tinubu, who is going to put the country on the right path. But the only thing he and his selected crowd put on the right path are their various pockets, some of which were shallow before he became president, but very deep NOW, with him as the number one citizen.

The North was blamed for believing that the President was anything but the tax collector that he had been even when he ruled the state of Lagos for eight years as Governor. He was said to have been the first governor to introduce the ridiculously obscene retirement benefits of former governors when he was about to finish his second term as governor. His tribe’s people knew that, which was why most of their electorate shun him and went for the opposition candidates of the People Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Me. Peter Obi, respectively.

But despite ‘electing’ him, the North had suffered from power failure under his administration more than at anytime in the past.  Recently, most of the states in the North, including the one time commercial nerve centre of the country, Kano, suffered from a power outage for at least ten days. But those in the power business blamed destruction by the ubiquitous bandits, but appeared to most discerning people that the power failure was a deliberate inside job. The retention of the underperforming Minister of Power, Mr. Adebayo in last week’s Federal Cabinet reshuffle says a lot about the shambolic exercise.

And some young people (including children under the age of eight) from the North were arrested and put behind bars in an Abuja prison cells for upward of three months, with a very stiff bail conditions given for their bail by a judge of a Federal High Court in Abuja. The young boys were only set free yesterday when pressure was brought to bear on the government from some individuals and organisations from home and abroad.

But shortly after he took over as the leadership of the country, President Tinubu said to Nigerians voters that they should not reelect him for a second term if he did not provide 24 hours power to the country. It is a promise that the voters, particularly in the North, will remember and fulfil with their votes, because it does not look like he is prepared to keep his own side of the bargain.

Even as  as this article is penned, another ‘National Grid collapse’ was reported severally on the social media to alert Northern Nigeria to get ready for the worst. The alleged collapse of the grid is the twelfth (12th) this year (2024).

A funny side to the national suffering was given by Charlie Boy, alias  ‘Area Fada’, who said that the imposition of Tinubu on Nigeria as President was ‘Yoruba’s revenge for the North’s Buhari. The wayward son of the respected jurist, Oputa, posted on his X handle saying that: 

“Northerners think they have the monopoly of sending their worst leader to rule Nigeria; they gave us Buhari. Yoruba gave them Tinubu and transaction was successful. Aura for Aura. Failure

to counter failure. In the next transaction, if North like, let them give us Ganduje or Matawalle! No problem. The Southerners will reserve Uzodimma, Ikpeazu or Akpabio to reciprocate. Our SHEGE pass their BANZA. Do me I do you man no go vex, Dia fathers”.

The country’s air space is filled with the tales of the severe poverty that has become the lot of most Nigerians, as can be seen in many ways, including the way how hundreds of Johnnies daily besiege the leading airports in the nation to ‘check out of the country’. The Lagos, Port Harcourt, Abuja and Kano airports are the exit points mostly besieged.

Subtle imposition of Police State on Nigeria through strong arm tactics by some of the country’s security agencies, notably the Nigerian Police Force under Inspector General of Police (IG), Dr. Kayode Egbatokun. The IGP has told Nigerians that their social media accounts and groups would be monitored to prevent anti government comments from going viral, and where the stuff is adjudged to be very hard on the administration, the writer and sharer would be arrested. This draconian measure is likely thought out to end on the Northerns, who in the main, gave the President most of their votes. The IGP made the warning through the Spokesperson of the Police Force.

Despite the clear failing of the President Tinubu led administration, some bootlicking rent seekers, like the Doyin Okupes, refuse to acknowledge that the pervasive poverty ravaging the country is created by the harsh economic policies of the present administration. They falsely praise the President to high heaven, with a view to being invited to again join the table for a feast on the National cake.

Nigeria is the only country in the world which has vermins as rulers, assisted by their equally greedy accomplices, both of who are insatiable in amassing money from the Commonwealth, with absolutely nothing to show as  positive achievement.

Man’s inhumanity against his fellow being is clearly in display on these shore, where the leaders do as they please. Recently, the duo of the President and his Vice were at a lavish ceremony in the Villa, dancing shamelessly to a beat made in both Hausa and English languages, but they constantly admonish the led to be patient with the excruciating poverty and hardship they wilfully put them into. 

May the Just God get Nigeria out of the mess that the present incompetent administration has forcibly dragged it into, with a view to please their Western World sponsors. It is a no brainer to understand that most of the Western countries would rather have most able bodied Nigerians working for them as labourers. And as far as they are concerned, most of the rest could vanish from the face of the earth, so that they may take its abundant mineral resources free of charge to their own countries for processing into manufactured goods and returned to the country and other African countries at a price determined by them.

And also save the common citizens of the country from the seemingly helpless situation they have found themselves in for no fault of theirs, other than ‘electing’ some clueless people to be their leaders.

Malam Malumfashi wrote from Katsina.