Between the devil and deep blue sea by Ahmed Abdullahi

It is often said that when initiating change, one must do it step by step given man naturally, is a creature of habit. I hope that is indeed the case with Mr President because if not, the consequences could spell severe gloom for the country going forward. Indeed, we cannot afford another eight years of misdirection and dereliction of duty.

When Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu took his oath of office on May 29th as the 5th democratically elected president of the Federal Republic since the return of democracy in 1999, I expected two things regardless of the circumstances that brought him into power. A radical return to sophistication in political discourse, and a stable foundation upon which a new, lasting political bureaucracy can thrive.

In the seven or eight months since his inauguration, sadly, the case has been putting the cart in front of the horse. Perhaps, that is the price for him being supposedly intellectually savvy, ignoring the process in favor of the outcome. Ignoring the basics and causatives in favor of the complexities and consequents.

Because how else can one explain that Mr President has been traveling around in search of investments and more when he hasn’t dealt with the primary issues that makes investors and foreigners alike distrustful of the Nigerian economy and state in the first place.

How can Nigeria expect to industrialize and manufacture in a globalized world when we are still failing at the basics of primary production? How can we ever expect to compete favorably in agro-industrial trade for example, when arable land still isn’t being cultivated, an overemphasis on urbanization by states, peasants and rural Nigeria is ravaged by a lack of infrastructure, insecurity and communal clashes, labour laws are still not comprehensive enough to cater to the peculiarities of the Nigerian worker, and there is no clear funding initiative from even domestic capital institutions due to the risks involved in operating in an informal state.

How can a nation suffering from division, polarization, lack of national identity, insecurity, structural bottlenecks in every aspect of law, business and public service, expect that foreigners will treat it kindly when it has not treated itself kindly?

This neoliberal economic shock therapy in the name of reforms instead of gradual selective cultural borrowing of foreign ideas and trial and error experimentation to compensate for the peciliarities of the Nigerian state is doomed to fail in the long term because the cracks continue to be papered over. Fundamental problems continue to be swept under the rug in favor of tackling derived problems.

Are we ready to have honest conversations with ourselves or will we continue to look elsewhere for answers?

Of course, there are complex conversations to be had on behalf of every aforementioned fundamental problem above, ranging from the stringent conditions for federal interventions in state and local affairs to the accountability mechanisms that must be in place to ensure checks and balances, but a gradual, step by step augmentation of responsibility for the states and local government must be done for effective governance.

The first phase of APC’s regime had the potential to set the stage by dealing with the core issues of fiscal federalism, local government autonomy, investment in law and order to deal with indiscipline regardless of political pushback and more yet it towed the path of its predecessor PDP government by prolonging inevitable conversations in favor of putting a band aid on the problems. The result is what we see today, a country divided more than ever, leaders not in touch with their everyday subjects and a host of problems that have reared themselves in one form or another due to institutional decay and the structural deficiencies in the make up of the nation.

Make no mistake, the farmer/herder crisis, the indigenous/settler dichotomy, and agitations from all corners of the country are a logical albeit flawed response to the fundamental problems plaguing this nation.

One must sympathize with President Tinubu though. It seems unfair to ask of him to do what most leaders couldn’t do while they were in power. In the citizen’s defense, they have entrusted in him, a mandate of trust and an explicit endorsement of his abilities to ensure the needful. An Awoist through and through, he must live up to the ideals of the great sage.

It is the only solace he must take in these trying times for him and the country at large.

He is now at a crossroads; continue to behave in a manner similar to his ideologically deficient predecessors or place his name in the history books by doing the needful and placing Nigeria on a path to progress and economic prosperity through subtle upheaval, quiet transformation and eventual silent revolution.

Ahmed Abdullahi writes from Abuja and can be reached on 07013365133.