The Israelites’ syndrome — of fashionable jeremiad — is loosed upon the land. Perhaps that’s natural when things are tough?
It’s double jeopardy, though: when chief among those that spew that distemper are those that ruined the land during their sweet and reckless power days.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo just whipped “Afro Democracy” — whatever that means — from his bag of subversive tricks, with trademark malice masking as reason.
His Vice-in-power, Atiku Abubakar, also just huffed after a single six-year rotative presidency (by the way, an Abacha-era ploy to cripple pro-June 12, 1993 democratic forces), after Atiku’s insensate fixation with power had blighted his latest run.
Twin-prodigals that wrecked yesterday, posing as today’s — and future — messiahs? Toh!
Still, instead of getting defensive, the Tinubu order should put things in right frames, and stop moaning over “serious liabilities from Buhari”, as Nuhu Ribadu, the National Security Adviser (NSA), just did — though he claimed he blamed no one but told the truth.
At the Chief of Defence Intelligence Annual Conference, Ribadu said President Bola Tinubu inherited more or less a bankrupt country, referring to the Buhari-era loans.
To be sure, loans are always disconcerting. But which serious capitalist economy demonizes loans — lazy ones that lack the creative oomph to thrive from loans?
Later, at the 19th Annual Nigerian Editors Conference in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, the NSA restricted his jeremiad to his core duty: security. He listed Tinubu’s inherited challenges: Boko Haram (North East), Banditry (North West), massive oil theft (South-South) and security meltdown (South East).
Good, the NSA addressed the flower of the media. But had the media tracked the environment, as it should by its core duty, and always published reports which core data dutifully track progress and setbacks, Ribadu should have sounded hollow.
Why? Of all four, only Banditry (North West) dawned during the Buhari era.
Even then, it was a spin-off from de-fanging Boko Haram: felons fleeing from a North East getting too hot; but plaguing, with their small arms, other parts of the country, as bandits (North West); and kidnappers-for-ransom (nation-wide, though with a vicious North West strain).
The other two: massive oil theft and South East insecurity were self-inflicted.
All seem to have forgotten the Niger Delta New Avengers, once lionized by a section of the media back in 2015/2016, because President Goodluck Jonathan lost power; and some folks swore they’d make the country ungovernable.
It’s fitting irony though that Government Ekpemupolo, aka Tompolo, linked with New Avengers back then, now does a yeoman’s job putting off the New Avengers’ blaze!
The South East meltdown is too fresh to forget. The Igbo political elite, rogue or straight, cut that region’s nose to spite its face, on account of Nnamdi Kanu and his IPOB. Beware of what you wish for!
But back to assets and liabilities: pray in 2015, what assets did President Muhammadu Buhari inherit from President Goodluck Jonathan — the electoral fall guy for PDP’s 16 years of ruin, though ill-luck Jonathan bore his brunt with uncommon grace?
What assets, indeed — beyond PDP-era sleaze, which hit doomsday proportions under President Jonathan, and caused the party to kiss federal power goodbye?
On the contrary, what assets did President Tinubu inherit from President Buhari?
In 2015, the 2nd Niger Bridge was not there. Neither was the Lagos-Ibadan standard-gauge rail. Or the 1835-metre Loko-Oweto bridges, that link the North to the South East and South-South, over the Benue River.
The Lagos-Ibadan expressway, now fully reconstructed, was a virtual death trap. From 2015 to 2023, Buhari’s Works Minister, Babatunde Fashola, drove work on the relay of roads and bridges to, first time ever, link Bonny Island, home of Nigeria’s Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG), to the Rivers mainland; just as he did on the Apapa-Oshodi-Alapere carriage way in Lagos, now completed.
Besides, pre-2015, no one seriously pushed cultivating Nigerian rice — and other crops — until the eat-what-you-grow and grow-what-you-eat whoop of the Buhari era.
That agro-rebirth has divined admirable agro-processing zones that may yet hallmark the Tinubu era. If well implemented, food security is well-neigh sure, via agro-allied re-industrialization, with jobs that come with it.
After, add Buhari-era investments in refineries, now rolling into the Tinubu era, and set to banish the import of refined petroleum by end of 2024 — all of that in eight years, rolling into nine. Compare and contrast all of that to the 16 PDP years!
Yes, the Buhari-era debts were the flip sides of these critical infrastructure. But wouldn’t the assets, acquired by those debts, be pressed into service to better drive the economy, than defensively whine over the “serious liabilities” from Buhari?
All too true: Buhari made his mistakes, not the least the catastrophic Naira redesign policy. The Tinubu administration would make its too. But the point is that serious attempts to right long-settled wrongs, started with Buhari in 2015, after the Obasanjo-led PDP had frittered near-all away, with a far richer till.
Again, compare and contrast Buhari’s and Tinubu’s opening policies. Buhari, though slow off the blocks, tried to rally local efforts, with support loans — grow-what-you-eat and eat-what-you-grow!
Tinubu, admirably bolting off the blocks, is pitching for global capital: venture capital from anywhere — even the Nigerian diaspora — to come set up shop in a huge, mutually beneficial market. That’s the sum total of his explosive economic diplomacy.
Different tactics and strategies. But same urgent push to catch up with lost time.
That’s the thing though — with eternal droning and wailing, critical breakthroughs, even as clear as a sunny day, vanish with sweet doom and gloom.
You see only the large swath of undone business. But are blind, deaf and dumb to little problems solved, which could well be the pivot for scaling the so-called big ones. Grateful hearts do the direct opposite.
That the Jews spent 40 years, instead of 40 days, may well be scriptural history. But it’s also piquant metaphor for a mind that sees nothing but gloom, even if the day dazzles with promise. That’s the Israelites’ mindset.
But hey, it’s politics! You can’t stop folks from always brooding and painting the worst-case scenarios, as Obasanjo, Atiku and allied opposition, will continue to do.
But the Tinubu order should remind everyone of the ruins of PDP’s 16 years, than crumble under pressure, belittling the recalibration, from 2015, on which it must build, though tweaking policies, wherever necessary. Any other way is shooting itself in the foot.
In truth, Buhari handed Tinubu a better prospect than Jonathan handed Buhari in 2015.
