By Ikeddy ISIGUZO
WALE Edun ceased being anonymous decades ago when he made his name elsewhere. He is so close to Tinubu, politically, that if the now President drawled Wale, nobody would be guessing who he meant.
Yet we have been left guessing how the former Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy left office. It is another proof that the only important thing to Tinubu is his re-election which is getting tougher.
“It has been a pleasure and privilege to serve your administration and the Renewed Hope Agenda,” a press statement by Bayo Onanuga, President Tinubu’s Media Adviser claimed Edun wrote in his letter of resignation.
“Under your leadership, Nigeria has emerged stronger, more resilient, and more internationally respected.
“I wish you and the administration every success in the future”.
Onanuga’s press release of 22 April was meant to refute the absurdity of Tinubu not knowing how to present the departure of Edun, who had resigned as Commissioner of Finance from Tinubu’s cabinet in 2004 when Tinubu was in his second term as Governor of Lagos State.
Edun’s ill-health had also been cited then as the reason for his resignation.
In the light of the flagging performance of Tinubu, if Edun a close associate, an astute economist and investment banker resigned, it could be seen as a verdict on the government.
The story would be worse if Edun were sacked after Tinubu had leveraged his expertise in praising the administration’s economic reforms.
Was Tinubu caught unawares by Edun’s resignation? Could anyone be allowed to walk out of Tinubu, who appears more stranded by the day?
Onanuga, in his statement, doubled down on Edun’s illustrious private sector career, “Before then, he worked from 1980 to 1986 at Chase Merchant Bank (later Continental) in Lagos. He joined the World Bank in September 1986 through the elite Young Professionals Programme, where he worked on economic and financial packages for several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
“In 1989, he co-founded Investment Banking & Trust Company Limited (now Stanbic IBTC) and served as executive director. In 1994, he founded Denham Management Limited, which has since become the Chapelhill Denham Group. He served as chairman from 2008 to 2021.”
Onanuga was 24 hours behind schedule with his curated rebuttal of how other Tinubu worshippers saw Edun. They wanted him out and got Tinubu’s buy-in.
Their dilemma was having no explanation for how suddenly the high-performing economy had conflicting figures of where things stood. They blamed Edun for that.
Edun had been public with poor performance of the budget, low funding of capital projects, rising debts, more borrowing. These contradicted Tinubu’s claims about how removal of petroleum subsidy had saved the economy, led to a new prosperity.
In trying to defend Tinubu, he took the blame for low releases for capital projects. We are to believe that there were tonnes of money for the projects and Edun refused to release them.
An admission from the Office of Secretary to Government of the Federation – Edun was removed “to strengthen cohesion and synergy in governance.” In other words, he was sacked.
Edun had just stepped off the plane from representing Nigeria at the World Bank meetings in Washington. The urgency of removing was obvious.
Nigerians are not buying the stories that “ill-health” saw Edun out of the cabinet. Onanuga said Edun wanted to be excused so that he could focus on “his private business”. Almost sounds like an allegation of Edun prioritising personal business over the public’s.
Tinubu cannot sack anyone over such a tribial matter.
Edun, whether he resigned or was sacked, raises more questions about accountability, insecurity, and the “primary purpose of Tinubu’s administration”.
Finally…
KENYAN President William Ruto, possibly irked by President Tinubu’s comment in Yenagoa that Kenyans were suffering more than Nigerians, mauled Nigeria with responses that supervened the matter. “Our education is good. If you listen to a Nigerian speak English, you’ll need a translator. We’ve the best human capital anywhere in the world,” Ruto said in a video that has gone viral. Some communication experts suggest that the response was directly targetted at Tinubu, and not other Nigerians.
FRIDAY morning started for me with the depressing story of Lisa Stephen who bandits left for dead after amputating her. Her story on Channel 4 is still on Arise TV YouTube platform. She lives in Widows Village, near Jos, a place that earned its name from its population of widows who bandits have brutally killed their husbands. On the night she lost an arm, she lost more. The bandits grabbed a 10-month-old baby she was breastfeeding and slashed it into two, forced her to watch her husband shot beside her and her second child killed by breaking the skull. The villagers dread the next attack which they say will come, and there would be no security agents to defend them. Didn’t the President deploy 5,000 drones “immediately” against bandits, when he visited Jos Airport? Tinubu is hardly working.
THE appointment of Fatima Zuntu as Director-General of the National Biosafety Management Agency, NBMA, has hit an iceberg. The NBMA Act requires 15 years post-qualification experience. Mrs. Zuntu left school 10 years ago. The horde of people around President Tinubu can’t even screen a proposed appointee. We can only imagine what else they are not doing.
SOME communities in Kwara State have fallen under the control of bandits. What is the benefit of being in the President’s party? Governors of 31 States are firmly for the President but none of them is spared the attacks of bandits and terrorists. What does the President do for those States? What does the President do for Nigeria?
ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues
