THE DISCONTENTS OF PROGRESS

  Grace Salami contends that the President means well for the country

   Like all governments across the world, it’s difficult for the sake of national security for anybody to know what happens inside. President Bola Tinubu was shocked at the rot he met on May 29, 2023. The argument is not why he did not envisage the rot while he was seeking the presidency. There were limits to what he knew despite being the national leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress. But what he knew was that things were bad but not as bad as they are.

It’s the reason why the task of resetting Nigeria has been difficult and painful. Just look at the facts. Nigeria was borrowing to pay the salary of civil servants. The size of the civil service was unknown, loaded with ghost workers.

Then, there was the ugly manhole of forex and fuel subsidy. The two acted like twin pillars consistently drawing back the country such that while the corrupt forex regime was destroying the naira and making some people rich, the oil subsidy was sucking government revenue while also turning a few individuals billionaires overnight.

It mattered that any reasonable government had to act. And that was why the new administration picked up the axe to cut down the two dragons.

Besides, the security situation was deplorable. It denied farmers the opportunity to grow crops which ordinarily would have protected consumers. Insecurity drastically reduced food production, consequently conspiring to rising costs of food. Even if food were available, conveying them equally faced two issues – bad roads and activities of bandits and kidnappers.

These are facts. This is not an IMF-induced economy, it’s

wholly Nigerian. The policies are being generated by Nigerians. The man

agers are Nigerians. It calls for reason therefore that this government must be given a chance to lay the bridge across the stream.

 President Tinubu has in just one year shown commitment to arrest the challenges. One mark of a good leader is to acknowledge how bad things are at every particular time and to inform citizens of the hardship they will face as a result of the difficult choices. Tinubu has not hidden that fact.

When embarking on subsidy removal, he told Nigerians it’s a difficult choice. That’s why serious works are being done on indigenous refineries for locally refined fuel to fill the stations instead of imported fuels.

More money is being made available to states following the fuel subsidy removal. This is to ensure that states perform their constitutional roles. The recent Supreme Court judgement which granted financial independence to the local councils would most likely have some salutary impact on governance and the people. By paying the local councils directly, it will foster inclusiveness and encourage mass participation in government. Also, the people can influence who their leaders will be at that level and monitor funds and direct development as they wish.

Now that’s what good leadership is all about – inclusiveness and mass participation. This should be commended. There should be mass indication of interest for local council elections. Indeed, many states who had been hesitant, are now on the verge of conducting local council elections. This is good for democracy. Communities should elect individuals that can deliver the goods at that level.

That gained, the president has continued in his vision of targeted economic reliefs. The enactment of the Student Loans Access to Higher Education law is in keeping with the President’s declaration that no Nigerian student, regardless of his background, will be excluded from obtaining quality education.

To show how important that is to the students, millions applied for the loan within 24 hours of launching. The president must be commended because the first line of difficulty to access tertiary education has been eliminated.

The Tinubu administration is also targeting increased gas production to ensure the supply of about 500 million standard cubic feet of gas per day. The administration has resuscitated three out of the seven gas processing plants across the country to improve value from the nation’s gas assets while eliminating gas flaring. 

This policy will provide gas to the market by the middle of this year for electricity generation and industrial needs.

Therefore, the administration’s policy on Compressed Natural Gas Initiative offered more affordable alternatives to petrol and diesel for transporters and commuters to ease the burden of the increase in petrol cost after the removal of subsidies.

That’s why CNG buses are receiving traction and will soon hit the roads. Nigerians can decide to convert their vehicles to CNG with the establishment of conversion stations hitting the country already.

To hasten the process of arresting the after effects of some of these policies, the president directed direct palliative interventions, some through the legislators, who received palliative items worth N200 million for distribution to their constituents.The president has also caused the distribution of 740 trucks of rice directly to Nigerians which is causing excitement. As the name suggests, these are temporary measures to cushion the prevailing hard times.

In the health sector, President Tinubu directed the redesigning of the Basic Health Care Provision Fund as the foundational basis for sector-wide reforms that attracted the infusion of $2.5 billion into the financing of the National primary health care system.

It’s clear that the president means well for the country, especially the youths who are directly receiving attention based on his policies. The president is directly targeting the youths because he believes the youth as the leaders of tomorrow must not only prepare but be prepared to face the challenges of tomorrow.

 This is why the proposed protest is not resonating with the people, as seen by announcements from different groups. There’s no basis for protest. The Kenyan experience, which appears to be influencing the protest in Nigeria may bear some justifiable reasons. And that’s based on IMF-induced policy which forced the government to slam fresh taxes on almost everything.

But in Nigeria, the government has not done that. The effect of what the people are feeling is inflation which is also being witnessed across the globe. Global economy has not stabilised after the effects of the COVID-19 affliction. Most governments have had to embark on borrowing with the concomitant effects of external control in the form of austerity and taxes from the IMF and the World Bank.

Fortunately, Nigeria has adopted a different route by instigating a domestic approach to solving them. These are through aggressive export, reduction in recurrent expenditure, cutting down on waste and cutting the activities of illegal miners to enable the government to have access to the revenues to fund its policies.

The journey has not been great but it has been worth it. The essence of these is for redistribution of income, creating environments conducive for investment where youth can be gainfully employed, and deepening Infrastructural development.

Protest even though democratic would provide the enabling atmosphere for fifth columnists to thrive and wreak havoc on public property and even worse, waste of lives. Nigeria still bears the scars of the endSARS protests of 2020. Today, some public properties are still out of use because of brazen destruction visited on them.  Governments have had to embark on needless budgets to rebuild them.

At a time the Tinubu administration is facing a serious resurgence in insecurity, Nigerians need to put their hands on deck, support his government and suggest ways that things could be made better. Now is not the time for protest and certainly not against a government that is steering the country away from years of bad governance.

· Salami writes from Abuja