While the campaigns lasted in 2023, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, told Nigerians that it was his lifelong ambition to become Nigeria’s president. Nigerians, the forgotten lot, especially, under former President Buhari wanted something different owing to the precarious situation, economically, socially and politically they found themselves in between 2015 and 2023. During Buhari’s era, sufferings, insecurity, killings of innocent citizens, hatred and divisions among ethnic nationalities; nepotism, religious bigotry, bad economic policy and corruption took over the landscape of our daily lives.
With the coming of President Tinubu, and his iconic statement ”subsidy is gone”, Nigerians thought that the end of the road has come for the rogues who, through the phantom oil subsidy have corruptly enriched themselves. But with what everyone can see now, it does appear that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu before taking over the mantle of leadership did not understand the enormity of the problems, or probably, he wanted to continue from where his predecessor stopped, which he openly declared. Indicators on ground revealed that till date; high electricity tariffs, high interest rates, the fall of the naira, hike in petroleum products price, and unnecessary taxation, indeed, are the major challenges confronting the government.
Neither has the administration scratched the surface in tackling the problem nor proffered enduring solutions to the hardship the average Nigerian is going through at the moment. Already, many companies are folding up and leaving Nigeria in droves because of what they regard as burden of taxation they also considered as very unfair and nerve racking. Till date, the government cannot clearly point to the foreign investors it has attracted, one year down the line. Simply put, people are dying every day, blamed on the mismanagement of the economy. The President should personally appraise his administration and not rely wholly on what his foot soldiers are telling him. Whether the people have fared any better is anyone’s guess. More so, now, children are dropping out of schools because their parents and guardians are not productively engaged.
In a country such as Nigeria where hunger, deprivation, insecurity, killings, have become a daily occurrence, it will be difficult to arrive at a true assessment of the government, albeit the hype of celebrating one year in office. The point remains that, commissioning roads and bridges is not really what the people want at this time, but rather, how to ameliorate their sufferings that is unprecedented in our national history. You cannot embark on several trillions worth of coastal road constructions when the people who should use the roads have been forced to begging to earn a living. While we welcome the upgrade in infrastructure and the resuscitation of decaying ones in some states, there is still much work to be done by the administration, including ways to drive investments into the country.
Government policy formulation should also be consistent to attract foreign investment. The government should find other means to ameliorate the sufferings of the people and shun the temptation of embarking on frivolous celebrations which will only favour some politicians who are not telling the presidency the truth. We expect the president and all others in high offices to use this one-year anniversary to reflect on where the country and people are currently; economically and politically. This moment is a time for self-assessment and should never be wasted on frivolous celebration.
