By Ikeddy ISIGUZO
WHEN President Bola Ahmed Tinubu speaks these days, it is obvious that his frequent travels have created a different country for him that he mistakes for Nigeria. The projects he claims to have executed could be in another country.
The country Tinubu and his top aides discuss, dismissive of its challenges, cannot be Nigeria of 2025. They talk about a country of their imagination.
Our most current challenges draw extensively from Tinubu’s compassion deficit – he does not care what happens to Nigerians.
He keeps his promises by making new ones or tabling incoherent responses. His Independence Day Anniversary speech mirrored the absence of compassion, a loss of touch with the Nigerian reality and an exaggerated importance of a presidency that dedicates its attention to serving a few Nigerians and extrapolating them to represent Nigerians.
Said Tinubu in his 1 October nationwide address, “We chose the path of tomorrow over the comfort of today. Less than three years later, the seeds of those difficult but necessary decisions are bearing fruit”. Which fruit? The fruit is reflected in statistics that have no bearing to how Nigerians are eking out survival.
Nigerians are better off today than in 1960, the Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Economic Affairs, Tope Fasua, echoed. We should believe him. His settings have improved since his appointment. And he is a Nigerian.
Sadly, his elevated circumstances that have resulted in more Naira in his pocket, and more opportunities, make him think that Nigerians are the same as he is.
Political appointees like him argue about better infrastructure when discussing projects that are in their infancy and make them appear capable of getting Nigeria anywhere, with all the uncertainties they bear.
These promoted projects are in fact major drains on the economy. Without transparency, and at humongous, inexplicable costs, the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and Badagry-Sokoto Expressway are great examples of the visions of an uncaring government – a government that prioritises a supposed fantastic future over the pestilent present.
A great future? What about the immediate and short-term needs of the people? How do we survive today while Tinubu builds this future which we are often reminded is for the unborn generations?
Does this focus on the future make the present unnecessary? Do we move immediate challenges to the future, all to accommodate Tinubu’s poor purpose, and lethargic responses to promises that he keeps making to mask his lax leadership?
On Friday, on Channels Television, Fasua said, “For those who try to compare Nigeria to 1960, in many ways we are living a better life now. In 1960, just after independence, we had a whole lot of people, of course, living in villages and so on.
“It was when we took over government as nationals ourselves that we started moving from villages to Lagos, to Ibadan, to Kaduna, to Enugu and all of that, and then that created a kind of urban poverty, because people found themselves in those cities and they were out of sorts as to what to do.”
Back to the present, “The current administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is saying that, look, we are not going to really be sharing money, we want to do something that takes us on a different trajectory, that paints a new picture, that prepares even our children and unborn children for a better life than what we have had,” Fasua said.
Here is also the present. Edo State, a proudly All Progressives Congress, APC, territory, is barely accessible. It has some of the worst federal roads in Nigeria.
Minister of Works Dr. Dave Umahi last week visited Benin-Warri by-pass – which is slightly better than the Auchi-Benin Expressway – with Governor Monday Okpebholo, expressed shock at the state of the road, saw vehicles that were stuck or had turned over, and praised President Tinubu’s transformative infrastructure projects. A solution was on the way. He announced that Tinubu’s re-inforced concrete technology roads will have 50 to 100-year life span.
At an Independence Day Anniversary state dinner, Umahi told those who made it to the table, “Mr. President has directed that 100 kilometres by two lanes of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway must now pass through Edo. This is a special gift to the people of Edo.”
Rounds of applause filled the room.
Umahi revealed that Tinubu was “impressed by Governor Okpebholo’s commitment to infrastructure,” and that the State must benefit as a “reward for loyalty, leadership, and performance.”
Okpebholo gushed, “The President treats me like a son. Whenever we request support, he responds with express approval. This 100km coastal highway is proof of his love for our State”.
How will this “special gift” get vehicles stuck in the mud on roads around Edo State to continue their journey? Or they will wait for the coastal road? Is this “special gift” an example of the instant approval, according to an excited Okpebholo, that Tinubu gives to requests from Edo State?
Those who have their eyes on the cost and completion of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway should note the addition of 100 kilometres to uncharted parts in Edo State. They join in wondering if the Highway would ever be built, and the final cost.
Bayo Onanuga, Tinubu’s Senior Special Assistant, Media is among those who presently live in Tinubu’s promised future.
“The Naira has virtually stabilised. Investor confidence in our economy has been restored, and investors are betting on Nigeria. In plain language, the nation has turned the corner. And our people have started reaping the gains of the bold reforms instituted by the Tinubu administration.
“We can go on and on, reeling out the many macroeconomic gains of the Tinubu administration,” he trumpeted while reacting to reports that former President Goodluck Jonathan was joining the 2027 presidential race.
Who turned the corner? Did the President and his lieutenants turn the corner without the people?
Three months to the end of the year, we are yet to start funding the 2025 capital budget. Even the 2024 capital budget has not been completed.
Does the National Hospital which Tinubu does not use speak for our healthcare? Patients seeing a doctor are required to bring their own hand gloves or cotton wool, else they would not be seen. The hospital cannot afford to provide these even after collecting consulting fee from patients.
Hospital floors are mopped with just water, no detergents or disinfectants added to it, heightening chances that patients and visitors could pick up infections.
The National Hospital, a supposed prime health facility, in Abuja, partially tells the story of the application of the funds the President claims to have saved from his deft management of the economy to a blooming doom that only those living on subsidy like him, cannot feel because their access to unimaginable resources has drained their compassion and left them incapable of making decisions that are inclusive.
Tinubu sounds more annoying daily; he also sounds like he has finished a four-year race that is just four months above the half-way mark.
He is distracted by concentric circles of conspiracies on winning a second term, a gross aversion to transparency, indifference to injustice, and selective awareness of Nigeria’s drift to uncertainties.
When you add these to his compassion deficit, you will realise, in case you have not, why he is turning the corner with statistics – not the people.
ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues
