As Africa’s most populous country, largest economy and most notable) democracy, Nigeria is a bellwether for the continent. A weakening economy and rising insecurity threaten progress made in its democratic development. Amid deepening distrust in government and institutions, Nigeria has significant work to do in improving national, state and local security and governance following the national and state elections of 2023″- United States Institute of Peace, April 22, 2024
With food inflation hovering at around 40 per cent, a threat of increase in the pump price of petrol, as well as an unremitting insecurity – gun men this past week returned to Plateau state – as if they ever left – killing about 40 people and torching several homes in that latest orgy of insecurity in the state where the governor, Caleb Manasseh Mutfwang, is allegedly more interested in
getting some elected, spineless opposition law makers to sign advance resignation letters( resignation from where, the House of Assembly? Wonders will never end in Nigeria), there’s more than enough reason to critically examine how we got to this terrible juncture in Nigeria.
There’s this popular Yoruba proverb about a disabled who, when told how unsteady the load on his head was, told the interlocutor to better look at his legs. There has been a deluge of criticism of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu government, especially by political opposition titans, the likes of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Mr Peter Obi, both dishonestly attributing everything wrong in the country to the present government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu even when they both know that, truth be told, Nigeria did not get to this sorry pass in one day, or between May 29, 2023 and today.
Any objective appraisal of the Tinubu government must, therefore, take into cognisance how his predecessor, President Muhammadu Buhari (2015 – 2023) completely wrecked Nigeria, and took her back, economically, no less than 30 years. You would, in fact, be right to liken that government to Satan which the Holy Book said came to kill and destroy.This means that whoever became President May 29, 2023 could only have done very little in ameliorating our extant circumstances in one year.
It is, therefore, necessary to summarily dismiss the shibboleth of President Tinubu being the source of our current multi- sectoral problems simply because, as they claim, he removed fuel subsidy too quickly as if there was budgetary provision for it beyond June, 2023 according to a statement by Zainab Ahmed, minister of finance, budget and national planning, on 7 October, ’22.
Although they now, opportunistically, claim that they would have waited ages to end it, all presidential candidates of the major political parties promised to make fuel subsidy removal their very first action in office.
Long story cut short, President Buhari, through his sheer inability to have a firm grip on his government, especially on many of his key and consequential aides, the likes of Attorney – General
Abubakar Malami, who coyly took over complete control of the EFCC, Aviation Minister, Hadi Sirika, who sold Nigeria cheap, claiming he was setting up a National Carrier and, of course, Godwin Emefiele the Central Bank governor, who so completely epitomised Buhari’s laizerfaire, Sheik-like approach to governance.
Emefiele made it his bounden duty to ensure that Nigerians went through agonising anguish, queuing up for hours in banks trying to access their own money which he had earlier coyly confiscated, claiming he was going to redesign the national currency. So completely did Emefiele capture President Buhari that the latter was obliged to start giving his own interpretation of the Supreme court decision on the Naira re- design case after some state governors, belonging to the President’s own political party, had become so passed off at his actions on the issue they headed to the apex court for a quick constitutional resolution. For President Buhari, his position on the matter was a literal abdication of his official duties, indicating how powerful Emefiele had become, serving the personal financial interests of members of the Villa cabal.
On my part, all I could do was record the sordid happenings for posterity. I did that in the article below, published Sunday, 19 March, 2023 drawing close attention to that Presidential aide who went toe to toe with President Buhari on the furious journey to Golgotha, taking Nigeria down with them.
Titled ‘Godwin Emefiele: Not Until I Have Been Disgraced’, it read as follows, with slight editing for space:
I was privileged to have been both a student and later, staff of the University of Ife, Ile – Ife, when Olawale Gladstone Emmanuel Rotimi Esq, best known as Ola Rotimi (13 April 1938 – 18 August 2000), one of Nigeria’s leading playwrights, and theatre directors dominated, and popularised theatre at the Source ( Ile – Ife, that is.)
In one of his many plays, the Tortoise, a slow, ugly and very crafty character was seen preparing to go on a journey and was asked if he must, and when he would return.
Without the slightest hint of shame, he retorted:”Not until I am disgraced”.
As Lasisi Olagunju would put it later, “theTortoise is that character who fights on both sides, plunging the world around him into needless wars and anguish. Seeing himself as a charmer who cannot fail, he was without any moderation in consumption or in his assumptions.”
Emefiele, like the Tortoise, never cared a hoot; not for Nigeria nor for Nigerians.
The Tortoise story is, therefore, analogous to his harebrained currency re- design and swap policy which, not surprisingly, failed spectacularly, turning millions of Nigerians to worse than beggars, when they were actually, not dying on queues in banks, lining up to get paid as little as N5000.
However, concerning the ‘currency confiscation’ policy, it is President Mohammadu Buhari I pity the most.
Readers of this column, especially during his first two years in office, would remember how much I eulogised him.
Even though I later reconsidered my position and took all that back, I now, out of pity, earnestly wish he had left office even a day before Emefiele, and his co- conspirators, inflicted this currency deluge on Nigerians.
Who exactly did Garba Shehu think he was deceiving when he issued his meaningless story about President Buhari not directing Emefiele and Malami to flout the Supreme Court judgment on the matter?
Nigerians know that President Buhari is not hard of hearing but can we also say that he never one day saw, even on television, the thousands of Nigerians milling around empty ATMS, from morning till night? Neither Buhari nor Enefiele was bothered that those children of perdition, those God forsaken Boko Haram elements and their sundry cousins, could have decided to vent their own anger on these hapless Nigerians, many of who hadn’t eaten for days, nor knew where the next meal would come from.
As I wrote earlier, I sincerely wish, for purposes of historical reckoning, that he had finished his tenure a day earlier than the Emefielian ‘mala fide’ because, truth be told, President Buhari was in the process of regaining something of his old aura amongst Nigerians. But as things now stand, generalised hunger, anger and utter delusion have wiped off all that possibility.
Talk of his huge infrastructural achievements now and Nigerians are more likely to point to the unprecedented national debt, mention the railways, and you are likely to have Nigerians tell you they dare not risk their lives on a kidnapper- infesred rail line.
Nigerians have just been witnesses to the most inefficient duo of an arrogant Attorney – General and and an equally tactless CBN governor.
Only last week the defence in the P/ID 11B dollar arbitration case in London, raised serious issues of incompetence against the Attorney- General just as It will now take a new Attorney – General to let Nigerians know what and what have been sold, and for how much, of the humongous EFCC’s legal seizures.
The least said about Emefiele the better.
Having been serving his ‘real bosses’ better than he serves Nigeria, they were even prepared to make him President over us so he could cook more of his failed ‘rice pyramids’ which evaporated as soon as his presidential dream collapsed.Under him, the CBN had multi – dollar exchange rates over which
not even the World Bank or the IMF could restrain him.
For instance, the IMF’s Staff Concluding Statement on the 2022 Article IV Mission to Nigeria reiterated its past recommendations towards moving towards a unified and market-clearing exchange rate by dismantling the various exchange rate windows at the CBN, accompanied by clarity on exchange rate policy and supportive fiscal and monetary policies. That in the medium term, the CBN should step back from its role as main FX intermediator, limiting interventions to smoothing market volatility and to allow deposit money banks determine FX buy-sell rates, in collaboration with it. . They noted that an end to his crooked forex policy would help increase revenue, thus solving a major Nigerian fiscal challenge. But all these meant nothing to our highly political CBN governor whose friends,
benefitting from the hopelessly skewed forex policy, din’t want it to end, thus leaving a country struggling for forex inflow, selling the limited amount it has at dubious rates.
Indeed as at the time the two leading world financial institutions were advising him, he was acquiring over a hundred cars for his chimeric presidential election campaign.
As in the case of the A-G, the incoming administration must make it a point of duty to let Nigerians know who exactly Emefiele is.
For now, he has received his comeuppance, having been thrown under the bus from his olympian heights.
Indeed, if he knows what is good for him, he should simply resign, and give public service a long berth.
It is safe to say that while President Buhari looked askance, Godwin Emefiele took Nigeria down with himself.
It is now PBAT’s unalterable duty to lift her out of that wreckage and completely, positively re- engineer it the way majority of Nigerians crave.
