The last week strolled past like the thirteen other ones before it, but like those ones too, it did not go without leaving Nigerians with critical events and activities to ponder on. There were days when the events were not many, but the few that happened kept President Bola Tinubu in the office till dusk. There were also those with big events, but which permitted him to close early. Ultimately, it was the week that will always be referred to as epochal in the life of the administration because it saw the President setting targets for the administration as well as giving Nigerians an idea of the direction he intends to turn the country.
Although he made a number of remarkable statements, as well as a couple of appointments, the star event of the week has been adjudged to be the conduct of the first ever Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting on Monday. It was another very colourful day, just like the one before it, when the ministers were sworn-in; a full house, brimming with officers of the administration, about to take their marching orders on the task of redirecting the nation.
All along, right from May 29, when he was sworn-in as President, Tinubu has left no one in doubt that he has been worried over how the nation’s finances and the entire economy had performed and that he will waste no time reordering everything. His first act as President, while still on the podium where he was administered with the Oaths of Office and Allegiance, was to speak the age-long petrol subsidy into disappearance. His reason for this, he later explained, was the suffocating hold of the subsidy on the very existence of Nigeria as a nation.
He has consistently reminded Nigerians of his views on how the country has fared over the years; he is not comfortable with how the state of the economy, particularly resource generation and deployment, have been managed and believes repairing the situation must be an urgent and serious task. So right from the onset, he has dripped a trail of what to be expected along the way.
It was not a surprise when his pep-talk to his ministers on their first official day together as a team was all about getting the economic the economy back on its feet, so that the poor can breathe indeed.
“As I said during the inauguration, I am the bus driver and you are the conductors. We have to make sure this country stays on the right path to succeed on behalf of over 200 million Nigerians. We willingly accepted the appointment and I accepted the mandate of Nigerians. I have delegated some of these powers to you to serve the country. You are a very lucky person to be selected among millions of Nigerians and we will use the opportunity to show that Nigeria has what it takes to dig ourselves out of our problems. We must find a home-grown re-engineering of our finances, manage our resources and let the economy work for the people of this country.
“There are so many things some cynics will say are impossible, but in your dictionary of service, everything is possible and must be possible. We have the talents; we have the level of intellectual capacity to turn this country around. You and I know that the expectation is high and it’s a tough time right now. We must work hard, commit ourselves and create a buoyant economy that will serve every Nigerian. We have an employment level that is unacceptable. We are threatened by climate change. We still have underemployment.
“But to turn things around, you have been selected to perform your utmost best. The policy agenda will be set out to reform the economy to deliver sustainable and inclusive growth, and strengthen national security for peace and prosperity. Without security there can be no investment. That is true. You have to convince them and the time is now to do that. When you look around the world, every leader is clamouring for what they believe on what should be there policy on food security. We have declared a state of emergency. What is your goal?
“Every one of you is a member of this team, every one of you, no partitioning. We can do whatever we want from the assignment of responsibility, but all depends on you, if you stay focused, we will all arrive at a better destination and the country will be better off for it. We must unlock the energy and natural resources of this country. We must start producing for ourselves, and dig ourselves out of the hole. We must focus on education, healthcare and social investment that is essential for the development of our people.
“Our priority areas are defined in our economic programmes. Every area is our priority and you belong in the driver’s position to realize and make that priority a fulfilling promise to the entire nation and the continent of Africa. You must achieve the economic growth that is expected of us. We must feed our people. We must leverage on what we have and grow more to satisfy Nigerians. It is all in your hands now”, he had told the ministers last Monday.
This Presidential charge, heavily dominated by economic concerns, has come under review by various sections of the country, who have also offered how they believe the administration, through the ministers, can achieve the targets set by the President.
In its Editorial Opinion on Friday, The Guardian newspaper noted the urgency of time and the fact that the people cannot wait to start breathing with relief. According to the newspaper, all that is needed for the country to scale the hurdles placed between it and the desired ease, which is the President’s primary target, is just for every minister to take his job seriously, focus on the task reeled out by the President and genuinely desire to succeed
“Now that President Bola Tinubu has constituted the Federal Executive Council (FEC), with portfolios assigned to respective ministers, his government should settle down to serious work. There is so much to do in so little time. Nigerians are understandably impatient and ministers cannot afford to loaf. Every ministry is important and indeed, should take charge of the numerous issues affecting the country in the particular portfolio.
“If every minister works assiduously to overcome challenges in his sector, it will translate to the country’s progress and provide reliefs for hapless Nigerians who are directly on the receiving end of government bitter economic policies, topped by removal of petrol subsidy. Ministers should set an achievable agenda for themselves, and put a time frame for achievement, along with means of assessment open to the public. It will be disastrous for the ministers and the government if the new cabinet should steer the business as usual of the old”, the newspaper opined.
Also, a Port Harcourt-based journalist and public affairs analyst, Mr Egufe Yafugborhi, while analysing the picked three points that ought to be of special importance to the ministers from the President’s charge to them.
“First is to point that the cheering appeal on the President’s maiden interaction with the ministers was not in the matching order to shape up or ship out. His predecessors had given same matching orders without achieving anything near the target results. The cheering deductions from the maiden FEC meeting that were pointers to the President’s commitment to making the difference include the emphasis on every cabinet member, the ministers in particular, to see the management of their respective portfolios as mutually inclusive to realising the eight-point agenda for economic recovery.
“The second pointer to that was the President acknowledging the task before the cabinet as herculean and likening it to swearing to ‘fetch water from a dry well’. And flowing from that, he pledged to make them (ministers) not to be afraid to take decisions, a commitment to giving them free hands to maximise their potentials in making the right decisions to achieve their portfolio targets to add up to the overall set goals.
“But all said and done, both the Bus Driver (the President), the conductors in the analogy by Tinubu, must realise that realising the set goals won’t come by wishful thinking. It will only come by everyone keeping their pledge of commitment, giving in all it take to make that seeming impossible possible to the satisfaction of Nigerians. It is good the President, by his matching orders, has put everyone one involved on same page. What is now needed is everyone walking the talk in dedication and integrity. Is it possible to make the difference, very much possible”, Yafugborhi said.
Of course, the first FEC meeting will be always be of interest to most, much more the target that would be set at the meeting, but there were other very interesting activities during the week that were also worth the interest of various segments of society.
For instance, the President used Sunday to reach out to the Nigeria Bar when he spoke at opening ceremony of the Nigerian bar Association’s (NBA) Annual Conference in Abuja, speaking on why the nation needs to take a different route to public financing. On Monday, besides setting the ball of FEC rolling, took steps towards cutting cost of governance by slashing spending on overseas official events.
On Tuesday, he received words from the private sector community. Chairman of HEIRS Holdings, Tony Elumelu, visited on behalf of the business community, to commend him for what he has so far done in repositioning the economy. Same day he appointed a new Board and Management for the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
Then between Wednesday and Friday, it was all about international and some local targets; the coup in Gabon, sorting out the Niger Republic concerns and many other local issues dominated his itinerary.
The new week, from what was disclosed to journalists by his spokesman, Ajuri Ngelale, on Friday, will deal more with attracting Foreign Direct Investments and other positives from India, where he will be attending the G20 Leaders Summit. This is what we need to see.
