Between Tinubu’s Economic Errors and Strides and the Enemies of the State -By Ifeanyichukwu George

As much as one would want to be dispassionate in putting out one’s views via this medium, it’s about as impossible to refrain from mentioning the act of sabotage by the enemies of the state and its impact on livelihood as it is to prevent the radiations from the sun from reaching the earth. How the political leaders as well as billionaire entrepreneurs like the Murtala Nyako family of the north are manipulating the efforts of this government to put an end to food insecurity leaves much to be desired about their sense of patriotism.

While reacting to the June 12 democracy day presidential speech; a great many Nigerians had expressed dissatisfaction especially with the fact that the speech had failed to say anything about the skyrocketing prices of food stuffs. But what many fail to understand is the fact that the food stuffs inflation is the handwork of certain elements in the north who appeared to have perfected the act of weaponizing hunger before now in the north and are presently bent on using same to derail the national government by starving the country.

Early this year, one of Nyako’s sons had featured on the Moneyline with Nancy show where he clearly stated how his company used to buy up all the grains they could find from the local farmers and then export. At the time, I didn’t read any meaning to what he’d said as I had felt in my mind that this was just an entrepreneur who seems to have found a better way to source for supplies in order to meet deadlines of demands. I finally grasped the situation clearly following Governor Bago’s stern directive against warehouse hoarding.

Now, here’s my point: there is no amount of effort to work its policies on the economy by any government that will ever appeal to a mass of citizens who cannot afford to buy food or to eat 3 square meals a day. This, the enemies of the state knows for a fact and have used, uptil this moment to de-market the government of president Tinubu in the north. Notice, the stern warning of Governor Bago to these criminal merchants hoarding supplies; such was to let us know that he knows the power of hunger in de-marketing any government.

Incidentally, Governor Bago understood the antics of these enemies of the state and had acted well to put them out of business in Niger state. But it seems that the man at the center of the affairs of state in Nigeria – the Asiwaju of Nigerian politics and the emperor of the APC – is too blind to see what Bago saw; a group of thieves in the guise of agri-preneurs sabotaging government’s efforts at reviving the country out of the comatose state it was left off by the former president Muhammadu ‘Clueless’ Buhari!

From known recorded histories of some countries; there is no gunpowder that is as effective and as potent in sparking chaos, mass action and anarchy like hunger. The NLC and the TUC have come out in a 2-day warning strike to show government that there is red alert of looming crisis occasioned by the great hardship that both governments’ mismanagement of the fuel subsidy removal and the activities of criminal manipulators of the dollar and the farmer/herders crisis was causing the good masses of the Nigerian state.

Yet, government remains silent and, perhaps due to the euphoria of appointing ministers’ or increasing subvention to states. Now, with men like Abubakar Kyari as current agriculture minister; there is no way Mr. President would know the correct picture of things as far as efforts at attaining food security is concerned. And this is not because of incompetence on the part of the minister but mostly because you can’t put a northerner as Agric minister and expect him to be disloyal to his region that is behind the sabotage!

What the president should do is to do what Jonathan did with Wike as minister of state, education. Have we not noticed that apart from the tenures of Oby Ezekwesili and Nyeson Wike as minister and minister of state for education respectively; the same ministry in the hands ministers from the north has descended into a cesspool of corruption, disservice and retrogression; with the population of out-of-school children hiking daily? The last minister before the current came out to declare incompetence after wasting the citizen’s eight years!

How wicked and hardened, political leaders from the north have become in that even when in command of ministries that affected their people the most they did nothing; remains a myth that may stay unknown. As a country that has let itself to become encumbered by religion; one is tempted to say that perhaps a religious book has promised ‘paradise’ for the fellow who weaponizes hunger and starved multitudes to death. If not; why would a leader consciously divert trailer loads of rice that is meant for palliatives to the black market?

Isn’t that hardness of heart against humanity? So, if I was Mr. Abubakar Kyari; I would most certainly push for the setting up of a task force on compulsory price control. Why should food that is not affected by the dollar be as exorbitant to buy as consignments imported from abroad under the watch of any Nigerian with a human conscious? And for our information; I dare say that the push for an increase in minimum wage will end up as vain effort if the federal government fails to urgently set up a task force on price control. This is because if they don’t, the inflation that will ensue after the wage increase will be better imagined. Of course, we know that the civil servants are the only population that currently spends 80% of their earnings into the Nigerian economy; the politicians prefer to spend into economies overseas.

As I conclude by citing some of the giant economic errors and strides of this federal government – which includes the CBN’s directive to mobile money operators that has led to a drop in overseas transactions that are untaxed, the proactive management of the exchange rate/appreciation of the Naira and the substantial increase of the monthly subventions to the states some of which are now showing low-hanging fruits – let me say that the current hardship will remain if the masses themselves fail to join forces against these saboteurs of the state.

Amb. Ifeanyichukwu George; Executive Director, Self-Awareness for Suicide Prevention Initiative, Africa writes from Abuja. 08062577718