By Leonard Karshima Shilgba
The publisher of Ovation Magazine, Dele Momodu, published an open letter to President Tinubu a few days ago in which he referred to himself as a “friend” and “brother” of Mr. President, and affirmed that he owed the president “only one thing, the TRUTH.” He claimed that “it is obvious that the first thing that takes flight in the presidential villa is TRUTH”. Momodu further wrote, “I’m writing you today, not because I expect you to act on my suggestions, but to put it on record that someone gave you the true picture of things. I am also hoping that some of your friends will read and interpret to you, in a sober moment…”
The preface of Momodu’s open letter to his “friend” suggests that either he has removed himself from Mr. President’s group of “friends” that should “read and interpret to” him (President Tinubu) “in a sober moment” the content of Momodu’s letter, or his “friend” and “brother” President Tinubu has lately made it impossible for Momodu to have access to him by phone, email, or whatever form now that Momodu, in his words, is now “a member of the opposition.”
I read through Momodu’s open letter and found no single commendation of any of President Tinubu’s efforts in the past 13 months to stymie Nigeria’s economic bleeding, shore up Nigeria’s trade surplus, inject health into Nigeria’s financial sector, grow government’s revenue and free up needed funds from wasteful expenditures, provide education assistance to the needy and agricultural support to farmers, develop critical national infrastructure, restore local government financial autonomy for the benefits of Nigerians living at the grassroots, or to keep Nigeria safe.
It is painful to be in the field, labouring to bring in the harvest, while a friend stands afar off offering no word of encouragement but only fault-finding and excoriating vituperations. I am not President Tinubu’s “friend” or “brother”, but neither am I his enemy. Additionally, I am not the President’s spokesperson or adviser. However, as a citizen of Nigeria, I owe my patriots TRUTH, verifiable TRUTH, so that national hope shall not be dried up in the harsh weather of misrepresentations or half-truths.
Momodu made a definitive proclamation in his open letter: “Nigeria is in big trouble.” He wrote, “Our economy has virtually collapsed.” He then indicted President Tinubu as follows: “You’ve been wasting too much money at a time that requires absolute frugality. Please, stop this reckless propensity for wasting scarce resources.”
And what does Momodu consider as “wasting too much money”? He said the president is “purchasing Presidential jets, building outlandish monuments, distributing cash as palliatives, etc.” He referred to all these alleged actions by President Tinubu as “signs of a failed and careless government.” Additionally, Momodu made an open allegation against President Tinubu: “I believe you’re frittering away our resources because you desperately crave a second term. But the best assurance of a second term is PERFORMANCE.”
I understand that some Nigerian youths are planning a national protest soon. Words by “friends” of President Tinubu such as Momodu, no doubt, will be spurs to their side. Momodu used this provocative and inciting catch phrase in his letter to President Tinubu: “Nigerians are not expecting you to turn water into wine, but they don’t want you to turn their wine into water.” I should not say that Momodu’s open letter to Mr. President is a “put-off”, but it is beneath a former presidential aspirant and a “friend”.
Are Nigerians feeling economic heat in the face of rising energy cost and concomitant inflation that has eroded household incomes? Yes. Are President Tinubu’s twin economic policy decisions to remove fuel subsidy and deregulate naira exchange rates contributory to the twin problems of high energy costs and inflation? Again, yes. Were those policies unavoidable and necessary? Yes. Is the government of President Tinubu taking steps to reduce the hardship being suffered by Nigerians? Yes. Let us reason together:
Fuel subsidy in Nigeria became unsustainable over the years as government’s revenues dwindled with low crude oil production, increasing national liquid fuel consumptions, and absence of local refining of petroleum products, all during the pre-Tinubu era. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) stopped remitting oil export revenues to the Federation Account over a period of about 18 months until the swearing-in of President Tinubu, and shortly after President Buhari signed the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) in October 2021, which excluded fuel subsidy. To support government spending, the Buhari government (secretly?) borrowed over N 21 trillion from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) through an instrument called Ways and Means (whereby national governments borrow from their central or reserve banks). If Momodu or any other Nigerian became President of Nigeria on May 29, 2023, what legal authority could they have to sustain fuel subsidy, and from which financial source could they have funded it? President Tinubu had no choice to make in this matter.
There was another deleterious subsidy that the Nigerian government paid for many years, but only to the privileged politically connected few—foreign exchange subsidy. Official exchange rates were regularly fixed by the CBN. However, Nigerians could not buy foreign currencies (such as the US dollar) at those rates. For instance, if the CBN fixed N 400 to $1, only privileged Nigerians could buy dollars at this rate, and could sell at as much as N700 per US dollar on the parallel market, making an arbitrage of N300 or more. Thus, an investment of N400 million, for instance, in purchasing a million US dollars could fetch the privileged class a “profit” of N 300 million on round tripping! President Tinubu came and refused to sustain it. The removal of those two subsidies at once by President Tinubu on May 29, 2023, was a stunning attack on the source of wealth of a few but very rich and politically connected and powerful class.
Momodu wrote President Tinubu should “invest in vocational skills for our highly talented youths who can demonstrate their capacity for hard work.” I should refer Momodu to the Fourth Schedule of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria (as amended). Vocational education is one of the functions of Local Government Councils. Now that President Tinubu has caused revenue from the Federation Account to go directly to the local government councils (through the Supreme Court judgment), such services and many others listed in the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution would and should be rendered to the grassroots people by the local government councils.
To assist indigent Nigerian students to have access to tertiary and technical education, on Wednesday, July 17, President Tinubu officially launched the portal of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), having approved N 35 billion a few weeks ago for the take-off of the student loan scheme, which is to benefit the 70,000 initial applicants, averaging N500, 000 per applicant. Momodu may refer to monumental infrastructural development in Nigeria being undertaken by the Tinubu government as “outlandish monuments”, but Nigeria has great need of uncommon roads, bridges, railways, etc., to hasten national economic renaissance. Investment in agriculture (including distribution of trailer-loads of fertilizers to states) by the Tinubu government is indubitable.
I agree with Dele Momodu that President Tinubu’s government should find a better channel of offering poverty-alleviating assistance to the people. I propose that with restoration of financial autonomy to local government councils, the federal government should relate directly with them in offering aid to the poor at the grassroots. For instance, beneficiaries should register at Council Ward offices in the Local Government Areas, and be issued digital assistance cards with which they can be identified to receive necessary aid at “Public Assistance Banks (PAB)”, including food aid, childbirth aid, and Medicare. Politicians should be kept away from such aid to the people, which should rather be managed by civil servants. Ad hoc arrangements should be jettisoned.
Doubtless, the president is a transformative leader, who is not afraid of doing things differently and in a pioneering way. Not everybody (even his “friends”) will agree with him, and he shouldn’t have expectations of unbending acquiesce.
•Shilgba is a professor of mathematics at the Admiralty University of Nigeria.
