NIGERIA’s president, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is not known to be altruistic in anything he does. The trajectory of his politics, governance, ‘’generosity’’ and ‘’philanthropy’’ have shown in the past 30 years, and more, that whatever he did, and still does, which benefited anyone other than himself was, and still remains, an IOU [l Owe You]. A debt that will be paid on maturity. He does not do anything to benefit another person from the generosity of his heart nor from the goodness of his person. NEVER.
If Tinubu was your benefactor at any point in your life, rest assured that you have become, consciously or unconsciously beholden to him. It’s a down, and at times upfront, payment for your conscience. Examples abound even today of prominent persons who have lost their personalities, consciences and voices because they once benefited from the ‘’goodness’’ of Tinubu. If at any point the beneficiaries of Tinubu’s largesse found themselves in a place where it would be awkward to be in his corner and they choose to follow their conscience, such persons would be ostracised. For such individuals whose fealty to Tinubu becomes suspect, ostracisation should be regarded as a slap on the wrist. The punishment could be worse. Ask a professor who is world renowned. He used to be an unrepentant, unrestrained, and unrelenting critic of successive administrations in Nigeria. He was also adept at coining derogatory names for public officers including ‘’shepopotamus’’ for a first lady. He has been quiet for three long years. There’s no report that he’s unwell nor that his life’s threatened by the fixers of the extant regime. Ask a one-time one-term governor of Lagos state where Tinubu has been the de facto governor since 1999, until that ex-governor recently started crawling back to the emperor and genuflecting before the lord and the so-called owner of Lagos. He has been grappling with political exile and the associated harsh winter for seven years. Obviously, he’s among the politicians without a second address. And without contentment.He’s not a Muiz Banire nor a Babafemi Ojodu. Ask two of the former three deputy governors that served under the lord of the manor. They couldn’t survive under Tinubu. And they did not survive. Tinubu was probably the only governor of the Class of 1999 that had no less than three deputy governors in the course of his two terms of four years each as a governor. On average each deputy governor lasted for a little over two and half years.
In the event that you have problems recollecting current history, do not bother going into the past to dredge up how toxic and draining it could be to associate with the man who was created as president of this country in 2023. Take a look at the current dejure governor of Lagos state, an otherwise apparently enterprising and lively middle-aged man. He was banned from conducting any business anywhere near the perimeter of the Lagos end of the no-bid coastal highway contract to Calabar in Cross River state, on behalf of the state he supposedly governs. He was publicly shunned at the charade of the commissioning of the allegedly completed 30km of the over 700km of the road last year. He was humiliated. He took it because he knew he was an eunuch. Castrated. Without balls. Soon after, the same de facto governor appeared to have an issue with the Speaker of the state House of Assembly. The Speaker was alleged to have stood the governor up for hours during a certain budget presentation at the Assembly complex, a very unusual occurrence in our clime. By design or by coincidence, the Speaker was toppled [impeached] in a palace coup while he was reportedly vacationing in the United States. Public reporting said that the president sided with the Speaker, and his removal was voided. It was instructive that the Speaker flew straight to Abuja from the US in the wake of the coup before storming Lagos triumphantly. The de facto governor of Lagos state reminded the dejure governor of Lagos state who really was in-charge. Who was the boss. There is no suggestion that it is right, but governors in our democracy control the state assemblies and determine their Speakers. That happens in other states of the country. Not in Lagos. Not since 2007.
Without attempting to be exhaustive, we have gone to this extent to establish that President Tinubu does nothing that would not benefit him, and him alone. If any other person benefits from any of his actions, those benefits are merely incidental and coincidental. When he instigated a litigation in the Supreme Court for the direct remittance of federal allocations to the 774 local governments, it was to advance his personal political ends, not because he was interested in ensuring good governance at the grassroots. In any case, Tinubu cannot advance good governance, something he does not have, to any tiers of government. Of course, the Supreme Court found for him, lamely citing the provisions of the 1999 Constitution as amended, to support its findings. The obviously pliant jurists conveniently overlooked two critical issues, one constitutional and the other conventional, in federal settings such as we claim to operate. That same Constitution that they relied upon also provided that the State House of Assembly is vested with the powers to make laws governing the activities of the Councils, including money matters. On the other hand, it could not have been the intentions of the framers of the Constitution that Councils should be treated as federating units alongside the central and subnational governments.
It has not come as a surprise, therefore, that two years into the Supreme Court ruling, the status of the Councils has not changed. Not in a significant and manifest manner. But one of the requirements in the court’s findings that the Council chairmen and councillors must be democratically elected to qualify to receive direct funding from the federal government has been effected, that’s, if you accept that the charade that passed for election can pass the smell test. Tinubu’s sudden love for the local governments and the striving to funnel funds directly to them was motivated by his desire to cripple state governors financially. State governors had, anyway, been stealing the financial allocations to council areas through their corrupt though legal joint bank accounts. Well, it’s possible that that move could have partly compelled many state governors to dump the political parties on whose platforms they were elected for the ruling All Progressives Congress [APC].
This country is three years into the rule of Tinubu. He has been a colossal failure and an unmitigated disaster. On all fronts. Not some. For every one of Tinubu’s failures in security, economy, war on corruption, health, education, infrastructure and other areas, Nigerians have been paying with their blood. In public, ardent supporters of this regime sing the praises of their president. But in private and in their sober moments, mandate choristers acknowledge that it has been hell. Even in the simple matter of communication and fellow feeling and empathy, our present rulers have been abysmally poor. While some of them grudgingly admit that there are issues and ask for forbearance, others look Nigerians in the eyes and tell them that the claims of hunger, poverty and insecurity are bogus, contrived and opposition creations to besmirch the regime of Tinubu and his APC. Presidential spokesman, Bayo Onanuga, just said that quiet part aloud last week.
For 11 years, eight under the affliction of Nigeria, the late President Muhammadu Buhari, and three under Tinubu, the APC had lived in serial denial of Nigeria’s deterioration under their watch. The worst in terms of gaslighting Nigerians, and striving to make them disbelieve the evidence before their eyes is Tinubu’s APC. But the day of reckoning is afoot. Though Tinubu has been saying that he will win elections without voters, or without anybody voting for him, we are in the season where he has to, at least, show Nigerians his score card. That could be the reason for the ongoing fast tracking of Tinubu’s state police sham. Yes, Tinubu’s STATE POLICE. Delivering it overnight will be flaunted as an achievement for political stomping, and to serve as a talking point for party supporters. The current breakneck speed on the creation of the so-called state police is not to combat insecurity. No. Never. It’s for the optics and to serve the interest of one man, and one man alone – Tinubu. He should be stopped.
Why? Because there’s no way anything good, beneficial and enduring for Nigerians can come out from a short-circuited process over such a foundational legislation. Tinubu’s state police has been rigged. Garba Maidoki is the APC senator for Kebbi south district. He just changed his party affiliation last week. He said on national television recently on this subject: ‘’ Some of us who worked in multinational companies would want best practices to be brought home…I don’t believe [that] state police will work’’. He said he, along with others, received the 146-page draft bill on the eve of voting on it. The senator said he would oppose it though he knew it would still pass. ‘’Are we making these laws for ourselves or are we making them for Nigerians? I have come to the conclusion that every law [this] national assembly has made was made to meet the specific interest of a specific individual or specific interest, not Nigerians’’. He said that but for the death of a member of the national assembly, the bill would have been passed the same day the document was handed over to the senators. The situation was not different in the House of Representatives. The ongoing process for the creation of state police is to benefit Tinubu. And his 2027 designs.
For this president, regime security trumps national security. Anything that keeps him in power is well and good. A chaotic Nigeria ahead of the potentially sham elections in 2027 would play into Tinubu’s hands. The rushed formation of Tinubu’s state police is designed for chaos. Nothing in the draft bill has been thought through. Not the funding of the new creation which should have been preceded by a review of the national revenue sharing formula. Nothing justifies the federal government pocketing over 52% of national revenue. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nobody lives ‘’in the federal government’’. Nigerians live in local governments including the federal capital territory, and in the states.
In Tinubu’s state police there will still be an inspector-general. For what? And to what end?
Nigeria does not need a state police, certainly not the one fashioned after the image and likeness of Tinubu. His image is ugly. His antecedents are anything but sterling and inspiring. He’s a man logging baggage. His persona is not ennobling. He is self-absorbed and his administration is driven by self-dealing. A new policing structure should be part of the conscious restructuring of the country. Enthroning true federalism was a key component of the ruling party’s manifesto. Eleven years should be enough time to deliver on the promise. Restructuring has been a refrain for Tinubu as an individual long before he was made a president. Tinubu’s erstwhile ally, former governor Ahmad Nasir el-Rufai who aided the president’s accession to power, headed a committee of his former party, the APC, in 2019 to freshen the restructuring promise of the party. Where is the committee’s report? We know that el-Rufai is in jail awaiting trial after turning from a friend to a fiend. But is his report also in prison? It will be disingenuous to claim that Rufai’s team was commissioned by the late Buhari. Tinubu has told us that he is Buhari 2.0. There was also a national conference in 2014 where restructuring was exhaustively debated. Where is the report? Nigeria practiced a variant of the federal system in the First Republic where the regions were substantially autonomous, so there is a backdrop to draw experiences and inspirations from. If not for selfish reasons and political calculations, why is the vocal advocate of restructuring hedging? To allow Tinubu to create state police in his own image and for his own personal benefit is to do irreparable damage to Nigeria.
By: UGO ONUOHA
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