By Alade Rotimi-John
No greater significant comment can be made regarding the midterm performance of the Tinubu presidency than the pervasive sense of angst or of vague anxiety respecting a general area of social concern.
As the social experience is the primary source of an authentic comment on the socio-historical circumstances of a people, the Nigerian people’s condemnatory stance, for instance, of a stifling body of incomprehensible “reform” measures, of a generally perceived poor quality leadership, a palpable institutional descent into faus pax or rascality, the abandonment of pristine social values, a general disenchantment with an overly politicised atmosphere, and the official penchant for Faustian bargains will appear to be the inexorable chief criteria for awarding marks for the performance or otherwise of a giddy administration.
There is a near-unsurmountable dilemma in critiquing the Tinubu government. Criticism is generally impossible except on the basis of some concrete performance even of self-appointed tasks or programmes. Every government appoints unto itself the peculiar way(s) it desires to resolve the crises of its people’s existence regarding education, health, housing, employment, the economy, the environment, etc in concrete terms.
Answers as to how a government is performing on these social imperatives cannot be arrived at in vacuo. A constant activity of weighing, comparing, and selecting (even though recognised as essential critical applications of the mind) is largely impossible without some set of questions, some system of concepts, some points of reference, and some dose of generalisations.
A government whose main “ideological” plank is festooned in an imprecise drivel of “Renewed Hope”, poses a grave difficulty for interpretation, characterisation or evaluation. The dialectical process of mutual inter-penetration of political theory and practice has been rendered unclear or incomprehensible in the light of poor understanding or of some unhelpful preconceptions by a bunch of party eggheads inappropriately referred to as ideologues.
A major gridlock to the attainment of the full status of Nigeria respecting her description as the Federal Republic of Nigeria has been accurately identified as her curious mish-mash Constitution which is observed as more unitary than federal in content and context. A federal arrangement presupposes that a country’s federating units or her sub-national entities share powers with the central authority in all areas of governmental activities except in otherwise recondite subject matters as immigration, deportation, defence, citizenship, awards of national titles of honour, decorations, etc, census, customs and excise, diplomatic, consular and trade representation, external affairs, passport and visas.
The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 however carries a lugubrious 68 items listing on its Exclusive Legislative List parading such trite or common place matters as Stamp duties, Weights and measures, Patents and trade marks, Trade or business names, Prisons, Police, Railways, etc to the exclusion of the sub-national units.
It was canvassed for the APC administration that it was going to take steps, on assumption of office as the ruling party, to return Nigeria to a true federal state with all the accompanying incidents of classical federalism. It was going to rework the Constitution which has been widely observed as fraudulent respecting Nigeria’s claim as a federal entity.
Two years into the APC administration under President Tinubu, only token twitches have been raucuosly proclaimed as efforts to amend the Constitution. Piecemeal or half-hearted amendments have been proposed and lamely debated at the National Assembly.
It is believed that a return to the practice of federalism will strengthen the attenuated links between the federating units and the central government. It will, in fact, improve the sense of self-worth of the constituent units.
On the economic front, Tinubu’s dalliance with neo-liberal economic policies rudely denies the duty of a state like Nigeria to perform her social contract responsibility to the people. The responsibility of government to provide gainful employment by way of work, to secure life and property, to provide an enabling environment for entrepreneurial growth and development, to fund health care and improve infrastructure in the area of health facilities, to provide free and functional education, etc have been brusquely avoided or dodged by the Tinubu government.
The government has instead been wasteful in diverting the savings from the dubious fuel subsidy removal into white elephant projects like the fanciful Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and the ill-timed Badagry-Sokoto Expressway.
The stupendously high cost of governance is being daily accentuated by an unabating incestuous flirtation with elitist programmes and projects involving a horizontal or surface area extension of governmental activities through the mindless duplication of offices, of job functions, and of material objectives. The cost of governance is thereby ballooned.
Restructuring which appeared to be the main agenda during the 2023 electioneering season has been sidelined by government’s razzmatazz. Instead of diffusing powers to the other components of the Federation, Tinubu’s government is manifesting a centralising propensity by a cowboy-style takeover of the reins, for example, of the administrative units of States otherwise referred to as Local Governments through a mischievous Court process.
Further, the presumed independence of the Legislature and the Judiciary has found a new and restrictive meaning under this presidency. No thanks, in the main, to a cringing, fawning, and sycophantic legislature.
The tendency towards a one-party system being unconscionably promoted by the Tinubu presidency manifesting in the crude defection of lilly-livered public office holders and their hangers-on to the ruling APC is the dangerous offshoot of the scheme of the government to muzzle opposition, strangulate dissent, and ride roughshod on the people with unpopular programmes and policies.
The visible curtailment of basic freedoms under this government has been noted as its trademark. Protesters are tactically neutralised through the infusion into their ranks of thugs, hooligans and miscreants. Civil society leaders are branded enemies of the state and routinely hounded. Labour unions are harassed, blackmailed and bullied.
This government has performed far below a pass mark on all fronts of governmental activity. Some remedial measures are however possible within the remaining portion of its tenure but only as it takes the admonition of clairvoyant or far-sighted Chief Obafemi Awolowo seriously.
To a confused nation just before his translation, Awo had ruefully observed:
“The economic situation continues to be bad. The government, I have no doubt is busy in an ardent search for solution, but most of the time it pursues an ignis fatuus. A serious ailment, such as ours, requires accurate diagnosis and correct treatment. But our diagnosis is absolutely wrong and, consequently, the treatment applied by us is completely inappropriate.
“…In the peculiar circumstances of Nigeria, we have been trying to solve the problem which is purely agricultural by internal and external monetary manipulations and manufactory devices”
If the desire for the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people [which is Awo’s undying passion] is pursued as this government’s abiding directive principle or policy, it may save itself from its current ruinous, desultory trajectory.
Rotimi-John, a lawyer and commentator on public affairs, is the Deputy Secretary-General of Afenifere. lawgravitas@gmail.com