After President Muhammadu Buhari’s puzzling address to the nation last Thursday over the naira scarcity crisis, few All Progressives Congress (APC) leaders and members still believe that his heart is with their party. In Paragraph 23 of his address, he reechoed his singsong to Nigerians to vote candidates of their choice, exulting in Paragraphs 21 and 22 about his administration’s deliberate diminution of money politics or vote-buying. His innuendos all but made it clear in what low esteem he holds his party. If there is anyone left who still thinks the president is not engaging in a systematic and choreographed demolition of his party, complete with stigmatising them, the timing of the so-called monetary policy of naira redesign and the artificial scarcity the imprudent Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) orchestrated should disabuse their minds. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the main beneficiary of the atrociously executed policy of naira redesign, and the fringe player, the Labour Party, do not need to campaign anymore. Indeed their campaigns since the naira policy was hastily introduced and inflicted on the nation had become quite superfluous. The Buhari administration and the ingratiating CBN governor Godwin Emefiele have become their chief campaigners.
But the APC will probably survive this self-immolation. The president’s Thursday address, which centred on naira scarcity but ignored the more lasting fuel crisis, was completely unnecessary. There was no sentiment he expressed openly in the address to the detriment of his party that had not been given secret impetus through administrative subterfuges inspired and propelled by Aso Villa denizens. All that was required of him, if he was bent on speaking to the country directly, was to address two issues: one was the outcome of the consultations he had with the Council of State the previous week and his reading of the sufferings of his countrymen queuing to collect an insulting and dehumanising fraction of their legitimately earned money; and the second was his response to, and understanding of, the Supreme Court injunction ordering the administration and the CBN to abandon the naira swap deadline for the moment. To do both, an express directive to the CBN governor would have been more than sufficient. And if any further explanation was required, one of his spokesmen would have stepped in.
If the president thought the matter was serious enough to demand the attention of his countrymen, perhaps he would use the address to underscore his belief and commitment to democracy, the rule of law, and his desire to position his administration as a listening and feeling government. Alas, on all scores, he opted for the opposite. The Council of State had advised him to let the old and new notes coexist if the CBN could not guarantee sufficient supply in the short run. Of course the eminent Council knew the CBN was incapable of bridging the shortfall. The Supreme Court, where the Zamfara, Kogi and Kaduna governors had made recourse in their search for amelioration, also ordered that the notes coexist until the suit was heard and determined. The gravamen of both order and advice was that the CBN policy must be kept in some abeyance. In many unnecessary paragraphs, the president harangued his countrymen and finally and grudgingly granted the coexistence of the old and new N200 notes. From Paragraph seven to Paragraph 10, the president cited some implausible monetary policy tools that necessitated his administration’s skewed and counterproductive approach to economic theory. His assumptions and arguments were nothing but nugatory.
Indeed, in his address, President Buhari simply threw out the advice of the Council of State and flared contempt for the order of the Supreme Court. The advice of the Council was commonsensical, but in the face of the extreme chicaneries projected by the administration, it amounted to nothing. As a matter of fact, other than acknowledging he had consulted with the Council, the president made no further reference to what they said or didn’t say, or whether their advice made sense or not. As for the apex court, the president made short shrift of their order. The order was unambiguous, even to a first-year law student, indeed to anyone who could read or write. So, the problem is not that the administration couldn’t interpret the order, despite the legal shenanigans of the attorney general of the federation (AGF); the problem is that the administration has never had a comfortable relationship or interaction with the rule of law and the principles of democracy. Not only does the president see leadership of Nigeria as inextricably and conceptually interwoven with ownership of the country, he has always been unable to draw a line between democracy and dictatorship. On the surface, unfortunately as many analysts mistakenly believe, he is convinced that his naira policy would put an end to vote-buying or money politics. Ending money politics is, however, unlikely to be his main objective. There is nothing in this election which his party, or any other party, will do that was not done in 2015 or 2019. The scale may be different, but the measures applied before are substantially the same politicking applicable in 2023.
Even though the apex court adjourned hearing till this week, the order it gave two Wednesdays ago still subsisted. The Buhari administration did not indicate they were unable to understand or interpret the order deferring the enforcement of the February 10 deadline for naira swap. They were simply and willfully uninterested in obeying it. Mr Emefiele first gave indication of that disobedience when he met apprehensive diplomats last week and reiterated that despite the apex court order extending the naira swap deadline, the February 10 date still stood. The administration had begun to circle the wagons and ready its armada to besiege the rule of law. No circular was issued to the commercial banks in line with the apex court order, and nothing was said publicly or privately to suggest that the administration would respect the courts and the rule of law. Instead, in his address, the president barely conceded the coexistence of the old and new N200 notes and willfully ruled both the N500 and N1,000 notes permanently out of circulation. They had brusquely and subversively determined what part of the apex court order to obey.
The evil geniuses who plotted the administration’s incomprehensible election period objectives and responses are masterminds. They know their onions. They knew what to do if any naysayer took the matter to court, and they have played their cards adroitly by checkmating the litigants with legal sleights of hand. The administration’s goal was not any nonsensical monetary policy about firming up the value of the naira, checking inflation, thwarting kidnappers and ransoms, or promoting economic growth. These are merely collateral gains, should they manifest and prove enduring. Their main objective all along was to alter the outcome of the presidential election in favour of regional accretion of power using angry and disenchanted voters, or to forestall the elections altogether. Their eagerness in setting up a transition team was a ruse, a red herring. They are convinced that one of the two options will come to pass, and they are perfectly at home with either one. If the first option, they would not mind the PDP assuming office, for they view that execrable option as less provocative than the APC winning. The president may have mouthed many slogans in favour of the APC and reiterated the date and sanctity of the elections, however, party leaders now believe that for a man so accustomed to rigidity, he has found new and fecund ways to mince words. In appreciation of the administration’s disruptive policies, both the PDP and the LP have been less critical of the government and the naira policy. The LP, of course, is the PDP’s alter ego.
Alarmed by what they have begun to see and feel, APC leaders have started to assert themselves more vigorously against the incendiary policies of the administration. They hope they are not too late. When the president began to muscle the party leadership about two years ago, party leaders and governors traipsed along. They hoped that by groveling before the president he would either carry them along or respect their wishes on the few occasions they disagreed with him. When he dictated the overthrow of the party’s executive committee, they humoured him. When he named a successor to the chairmanship, they chorused in appreciation, believing that their often standoffish president was now becoming more beneficially involved. But when he made a subterranean push for a presidential aspirant, they baulked for the first time. His choice had indeed consternated them, and they saw the choice as peculiarly insensitive and reflective of the insularity and parochialism of his aides. Soon, they realised that if they were to win the election, party leaders would need to beat a different path. That path has now obviously and ominously pitted them against the president.
Only now have APC leaders begun to realise that the naira policy and the intransigence of the administration were designed and orchestrated in such a way as to mass and condense public disapproval of the APC to the last few weeks and days before the election, when perhaps any amelioration would be difficult. On Wednesday, when the apex court makes a pronouncement on the contempt with which the administration has treated their order on the terminal date of the naira swap, the damage would already be cataclysmic. The litigant governors will get their reprieve alright, but the reprieve will come two days before the fateful vote, a little too late to assuage the anger and bitterness of undiscriminating voters who, it is feared, hold the ruling party responsible for their woes. The PDP waits with bated breath next door, hoping to reap from the national disaffection, and trusting that both the president and CBN governor will hold their nerves to the very disruptive end. The only redemption left for the APC leaders, who are now condemned to experiencing and nurturing a schism between their party and Aso Villa, is to make the phony war with the waffling administration an open war. In words and actions, the leaders have already parted ways with the countervailing forces in Aso Villa clearly working for the PDP and regional power retention. The APC leaders need to meet and confer to save themselves from existential doom. If the PDP wins in February, they will suffer a wipe out at the March state elections. They must now take the bull by the horns by explicating their internecine quarrel as an ideological rather than mundane battle, and as a last-ditch effort to save the people from the stranglehold of Aso Villa, PDP and LP leaders, all of whom eulogise and promote the unworkable and shortsighted naira policy.
The president’s address to the nation illustrates vividly his ossified and incredibly confined view of politics, economics and society. More, it demonstrates how effortlessly he executes scorched-earth policies both at the party and national levels. He has used the APC almost as a special purpose vehicle, and is now not averse to letting it burn off like a rocket booster on a space ship. APC leaders, perhaps led by their governors, must urgently meet to find a way in days to convince the electorate that they fought the Villa’s naira policy while the PDP and LP acquiesced to it. They must find a way of getting through to their grassroots and convincing them that the party and the country can only be saved not by cutting their nose to spite their face, but by recognising the competence and depth of APC leaders quite distinct from Aso Villa’s errant an anti-party policies. They have a few days to carry out this frenetic task if they are not to experience a wipe out. Neither the president nor Mr Emefiele will reverse the naira policy, regardless of what the Supreme Court says. Even if they eventually relent and decide to obey the apex court order, they will sabotage even that obedience by undermining naira supply and doctoring the records. But if in the unlikely event the APC loses, the administration, citing court order, will happily go ahead and relax the policy. However, this administration will do nothing until after the February 25 election.
Naira policy is dry run for presidency
Last October, the Muhammadu Buhari administration announced a new naira policy. It was chaotic, ill-conceived, malicious, and, in the end, poorly and negligently executed. The CBN did not do its homework at all: no research, no statistical understanding of Nigeria’s banking culture, and the whole exercise was worsened by poor and incompetent execution. Nevertheless, the people were trusting. They were expected to start depositing their old N200, N500, and N1,000 notes, but would not get new ones until December 15. Who does that nonsense? Anyway, by the third week of January, 2023, the old notes were still being dispensed by the banks. Predictably, chaos ensued, and the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, drew attention to the developing crisis, warning that the chaos was engineered to subvert the APC and himself from victory in the polls. Considering that his party was in office, it took courage to raise the alarm and advocate deadline extension. Since then, both the president and the APC candidate have continued to bait each other with barbs, with one declaring ghoulish support and the other paying reverential homage, but neither meaning a word they said. The conspiracies have become self-evident.
But both the PDP and LP candidates denounced the alarm and encouraged the CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, to stick to his failing and tragic naira swap plan. It took the worsening of the naira crisis to reluctantly get the PDP and LP candidates to consent to an extension of the January 31 deadline. Reluctantly, the government shifted the deadline to February 10, but warned that there would be no further shift. One or two weeks later, after sounding the first alarm, Asiwaju Tinubu again warned that the worsening chaos was engineered to prevent election from taking place, including plotting for an interim government. He advocated another extension. This time, the PDP and LP sneered at the APC suggestion, and despite the immense anguish encountered by beleaguered Nigerians, encouraged the government not to relent. Indeed, both parties even blamed the APC for hoarding the new notes, until it was revealed that only about N300bn was printed to replace more than N2.5trn mopped up. In an economy estimated to be over N170trn, said economists undermining the specious and negligent argument of the CBN, it is criminal conspiracy to print N300bn-N400bn when even N2.5trn would not be sufficient.
Both the PDP and LP provided no statistical justifications for their support for Mr Emefiele’s naira swap and no sound argument for their hard line positions. Even after the Supreme Court ordered a deadline extension, only the APC candidate engaged with the public, offered six economic options for consideration, and made sound arguments about the direction the economy should be heading. It was immediately clear that both the PDP and LP were not prepared for office, had no fresh ideas to propound, and no conception of society, let alone understand its workings and how to reengineer it. Clearly, the naira redesign policy tested the leadership instincts and prowess of the candidates, measured their response time, and determined whether they appreciate what leadership is all about. The policy in fact presented the country with a dry run for the presidency. It would be tragic if the lesson is lost on the country.
It also became quite clear that even the current Buhari administration has an awkward understanding of leadership, not to talk of envisaging a great future for the country. As the self-inflicted naira swap crisis swelled and exploded, the president barely consulted with anyone but the incompetent and genuflecting Mr Emefiele, abandoned any pretext to inclusivity in governance, and deprecated the intervention of both the Council of State and the apex court. Just how much punishment can Nigeria endure?
