All The First Week’s Drama

VIEW FROM THE GALLERY BY MAHMUD JEGA

In a week in which a Federal administration was inaugurated, ten state governors began their second terms in office and eighteen new administrations were inaugurated in the states, six of them involving a hostile take-over by opposition parties, chaos and high drama were always expected in Nigeria. In addition, some of the eight states that have been relatively tranquil during the general election season because they have off-season governorship elections are now beginning to stir, with some of their own elections around the corner.

Probably the most startling allegation last week was made by the new Governor of Zamfara State, Dauda Lawal, that his predecessor Bello Mutawalle went away with seventeen exotic vehicles worth N1.2 billion that his administration bought. Lawal’s government unloaded all the documents pertaining to the purchase, including the vehicles’ make, the contractor, the approval papers and the vouchers. Not only the vehicles, but other government property including TV sets and fridges were also said to have been carted away by the departing officials.

What are we to make of this? I don’t expect a governor to stoop so low as to yank a TV set off the shelf. I recall the occasion in January 1992 when the new civilian administration in Jigawa State accused the departing military administration of carting away everything including utensils, plates and carpets. As it turned out, it was the Government House staff, including security guards, that looted such things after the governor had departed. In the olden days of military coups in Nigeria, soldiers had a tradition, that anyone whose name was so much as mentioned as a coup suspect, his entire belongings were available to be looted.

The same thing that happened in Jigawa may have happened in Zamfara, especially when a hostile administration was taking over and the outgoing governor departed post-haste for Egypt. Except for the vehicles. While house maids, drivers and security guards could loot TV sets and mattresses, they could not possibly take away exotic vehicles without the highest-level collusion. Where will a gardener go with a bullet-proof Lexus jeep? Given that bandits are still on the prowl in many parts of Zamfara State, Governor Lawal needs those bullet-proof jeeps in order to tour his state.

In nearby Sokoto State, new Governor Ahmed Aliyu swiftly cancelled the appointments of nearly 40 permanent secretaries and director generals that former governor Aminu Tambuwal made in the closing days of his regime. Also suspended were 15 traditional rulers and senior Sultanate councillors that were appointed and turbaned five days before Tambuwal’s tenure ended. Knowing that a hostile opposition government was about to take over, it was quite a surprise that so many senior civil servants and traditional rulers accepted their appointments from the departing government. It was all but certain that those appointments will be cancelled, and at least one female director general rejected her posting, saying she waited four years without posting and would not accept the last-minute one. Also reversed by Aliyu was the renaming of tertiary institutions in the state; Tambuwal had eight years to change those names but waited until hours to his departure.

Things are a little bit easier when a friendly government of the same political party is taking over. I said a little bit, because tenure security of all last-minute appointments is uncertain. At the federal level, the departing President Buhari also made many last-minute appointments. President Bola Tinubu has not cancelled any of them, in contrast, for example, to President Olusegun Obasanjo, who on his ascension on May 29, 1999 cancelled every appointment and contract made by the former military regime from January 1, 1999. In one fell swoop, Obasanjo wiped away half of General Abdulsalami Abubakar’s eleven-month tenure.

In Kano it was not a case of disappeared vehicles or last-minute appointment cancellations that made the headlines, but the weekend demolition of plazas and houses said to have been built on illegally acquired public land. New Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf, better known as Gida Gida, waited until Friday evening when the courts had closed for the weekend and no one could obtain a restraining order. He then personally led demolition teams to demolish property at Daula Hotel and other prominent places that the Ganduje administration earlier sold or leased out, allegedly to family members and cronies.

Abba Gida Gida is already the new Mai Rusau [i.e., the demolisher], the popularly-awarded title of former Kaduna State Governor Nasir el-Rufa’i, who was demolishing alleged illegal buildings right into the final hours of his rule. Now, if Gida Gida had waited until Monday, he probably would never demolish any building because lawyers will rush in with injunctions. Yet, owners of some of the demolished buildings might ultimately win their cases in court, and KNSG could be saddled with huge judgement debts. Former state governor Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, no fan of Ganduje, has already advised the new governor to make haste slowly and conduct a thorough check of the land award processes first, but Gida Gida swore that the demolitions will continue. Many traders who rented shops from the property developers are caught in the middle, victims of collateral damage.

In Benue State, new Governor Hyacinth Alia merely froze all the state government’s accounts. This was a prudent move. In the past, there were allegations that a departing government issued many post-dated cheques that were cashed into the new government’s tenure. Alia’s inheritance is one of the least appealing in the country, with many months’ backlog of salaries and pensions and a huge debt, but being a reverend father, he is going about things rather quietly. Alia is Benue State’s second priestly governor in 30 years, after the late Father Moses Adasu. Alia’s predecessor had a bumpy tenure in the hands of the late Godwin Daboh, and this is hoping that Alia will have a much easier time.

But of course, the top defining issue of last week was the end to petrol subsidy, dramatically announced by President Bola Tinubu in his inaugural speech. It set off an immediate chain reaction, with motorists rushing to petrol stations to buy the last cheap fuel while many marketers responded by closing their stations, hoping to sell at a much higher rate. Within two days, the queues disappeared when NNPC Limited issued a new price template that entailed a 250% petrol price increase. The queues were gone, but the katakata was only just beginning, with the comatose Nigeria Labour Congress [NLC] stirring back to life on the issue that most made it relevant during the military and early civilian administrations.

NLC and Trade Union Congress [TUC] have already called a general strike to start from Wednesday. The last time the duo called a general strike to protest fuel price hikes in 2016, it failed woefully, partly because the Buhari regime was still popular and also because the increase was relatively small, about 30%. On the previous occasion in January 2012 when Big Labour called a general strike to protest the Jonathan administration’s attempt to end fuel subsidy, it succeeded beyond Labour’s imagination. NGOs seized the initiative and transformed it into an Occupy Nigeria, the government reversed itself, the NGOs tried to widen the scope of the protest to include new demands, but NLC pulled the rug from under their feet and called off the strike.

Now, for the past two or three years, former president Buhari huffed and puffed about ending the costly fuel subsidy regime. He was in a bind because as veteran opposition leader, he had denied the reality of subsidy, famously saying, “Who is subsidising who?” A year to his tenure’s end, Buhari signed into law the Petroleum Industry Act [PIA] that ended subsidy, but postponed its implementation into the tenure of his successor. Rather than kick the ball further downhill, President Tinubu took up the gauntlet and ended it even earlier than the envisaged end of June.

Trillions of naira in fuel subsidy, euphemistically called “under recovery” during the Buhari years, has nearly bankrupted the federal treasury, with the former cash-cow NNPC now making zero contributions to the Federation Account. Government’s strident campaign over the years has convinced many Nigerians that the subsidy regime probably has to end, but the steep increase last week, with its reverberating effect on transport fares and all other prices, wiped away those psychological gains. The labour leaders organising this week’s proposed strike however have a problem because all three top candidates in the last presidential election, including the Labour Party candidate they supported, all pledged to end fuel subsidy. I have not seen Peter Obi criticising Tinubu’s move and PDP’s Atiku Abubakar could only say in Bauchi that he would have unrolled palliatives first before ending the subsidy.

President Tinubu too has committed himself to palliative measures. Chances therefore are that the marathon meetings expected early this week between government officials and labour leaders in order to avert a strike will centre around the palliatives, despite labour’s maximum demand for restoration of the subsidy regime. A crash program to revive the moribund petrol refineries will help the case, and if the Dangote refinery will have a positive impact on domestic fuel prices, it is time to tell Nigerians how.