Letter to President Tinubu: Economy, Social Service, Security

Let me start by congratulating you, Mr. President, for being declared winner of the 2023 presidential election and for your eventual swearing in on May 29. It will interest you to know that I did not support you in the election; I did not want you to be the president of the country for the simple reason that I believed (and still do) that one of your opponents in the election, Mr. Peter Obi of the Labour Party, embodies, in my estimation, by far the values and qualities of who I would want to lead Nigeria at this time.

Currently, your declaration as the winner is being contested at the election petition tribunal by three of your opponents, Mr. Peter Obi inclusive. Until the Supreme Court decides one way or the other, you are the president of Nigeria today; and I cannot deny that. Hence this letter to you.

I am making my letter public for obvious reasons; and I want to ask that you and your government should focus your efforts, attention, energy and resources to just three broad areas. The Nigeria that has been handed over to you is worse than a car whose engine has malfunctioned. To stretch that argument, the four tyres and the spare are off, all the doors are off; and the car is simply undriveable! The country is in its worst form and state since independence, the civil war time inclusive (I say this because during the civil war, it was only the old Eastern Region that bore the burden of the war; while today, it is the entire country).

For your government to move us a few steps out of the precipice, you must shy away from getting involved in too many things that will distract your attention. I am saying so because a few days ago, you made mention that your government will fight corruption to ground zero. You know it’s not true simply because you do not have what it takes to engage in that battle. If Mr. ‘Straight’ Muhammadu Buhari could be so mercilessly beaten by corruption, fighting corruption would send you to your early grave if you go near there! So, stay on where you have comparative advantage and see if you could claw back this country from the brink of collapse.

These three areas: Economy, Social Services and Security are the major areas I would recommend you take head on in order to recover the country. I will expatiate shortly.

I know that you will not be able to talk openly about the disastrous state in which the country has been handed over to you because it was your political party, the All Progressives’ Congress which ruined the country in just eight years. And because of your political interest, you did not say anything about the ruination of the country by your party and your immediate past predecessor, President Muhammadu Buhari, whose government exhibited gross ineptitude in the management of the country.

You will soon realize that on all grounds, everything is broken. There is no area of our national life that you will not find decay of unimaginable magnitude. That is the result of what poor leadership can produce. So, to help your government stabilize, you need to urgently focus on these three areas in a way that should show that you do not want a national disaster in your hands.

Briefly on my suggested three areas of priority:

Economy

As you know, the Nigerian economy has somersaulted. Government does not have money to carry out its core functions. We have borrowed to our upper limit. Your campaign promises will amount to hot air without money to implement those promises; that is if you meant to implement them.

Luckily, you have taken the very first steps right, which are to remove the so-called petrol subsidy and suspend Godwin Emefiele, the worst central bank governor in history. On subsidy, your predecessor ought to have done so after he won his second  term in 2019 at the latest; he rather allowed the country to bear such an unwarranted and debilitating burden. On Emefiele, it was obvious he was a pliant man who illegally printed N22.7 trillion for the government to squander.

Other big economic sub-sectors that require such surgical intervention include dealing with the disease called Lagos ports congestion and power/electricity supply (again, you have taken the right step by signing into law the electricity bill — you should be shocked at the lack of political will by your predecessor to sign that bill passed since last year). Decongestion of the Lagos ports will boost business on a national scale given that the economy is import dependent.

Broadly, modern infrastructure, modern agricultural system, including ranching, dealing with the multilayered taxation system in the country, encouraging manufacturing and medium scale businesses call for urgent action. Thankfully, there is a law that allows incoming presidents 60 days max to name their cabinets. Again, that law came about because President Buhari spent precious six months before naming the first batch of his ministers! So, it is given that you will assemble your cabinet soon so you could be helped to deal with these issues expeditiously.

Your policy advisory sub committee on oil and gas has submitted its report. Much of it is good; but it should be noted that the public will watch closely the privatization aspect of the report, if adopted by your government, to ensure that state preeminent assets do not get sold off for a penny to your cronies. In addition to this, the time lines set for the implementation of the various segments in that report is simply over ambitious.

Don’t get involved in helping small scale businesses grow; that should be the forte of the states, and local governments (if this arm of government still exists). Persuade, if you will, state governors to tackle poverty through support to small businesses and direct funds credits to the poor of the poor as well as spending their state money on and in the states rather than on frivolities and egoistic projects with negative economic benefits.

You have to invest massively in infrastructure. Thankfully, your predecessor tried in this area but the effects could not be felt broadly due to massive infrastructure deficit. You need to triple his record in this area within your four year tenure (assuming that the Supreme Court rules in your favour). The entire electricity value chain: generation, transmission, distribution and marketing must be overhauled. Light up Nigeria, and you will be remembered for good forever! Nigeria has been in darkness for far too long. Electricity was invented some 300 years ago by Michael Faraday yet the country chose darkness. Break the backbone of the hydra-headed forces that have covenanted to keep the country in darkness. We spend billions of dollars yearly to import power generating sets, and so much more on imported diesel to fuel their engines. It’s a recipe for economic disaster.

Same treatment should apply to roads, bridges and rail construction. Our roads are killing fields. Thousands of kilometres of federal roads need to be reconstructed across the country. I am sure you know that many states do not have rail infrastructure. Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Ebonyi, Taraba, Kebbi, Ekiti, Ondo, etc. do not know what this means in real terms. Shouldn’t we be collectively ashamed!

Just yesterday, June 14th, you caused the central bank to devalue the naira by over 20 percent in the name of a unified foreign exchange rates system. This is a double edged sword: it has advantages and disadvantages. Do not be too quick to please the West and portfolio investors who are always the first to fly out and leave us with the wrong end of the stick. Yes, more dollars will flow in; yes, there will be more Naira for the federation to spend; yes, our tiny exporters will make more money. But inflation will skyrocket, consumption will be squeezed, essentials will be out of the reach of the poor; manufacturing will tank, and poverty will multiply.

Social Services

Let me focus on education and health care systems only. Our public primary schools churn out illiterates (now this is not a federal issue but states’)! Public secondary schools are just a shade better. It will interest you to know that the number of Nigerians who studied in the United Kingdom alone rose from 13,020 in the 2019/2020 academic year to 21,305 by the next academic year. Over 2,000 Nigerian trained medical doctors leave the country annually to seek employment abroad. The number is more than triple for nurses. We can make several conjectures on these statistics: brain drain, dollar drain, poor quality educational and health services, expensive services for those institutions that have glorified quality; medical tourism, etc. Just last week, someone joked that at the rate physicians are leaving the country for greener pastures, we may soon be treated in hospitals by traditional medicine practitioners!

Massive investments in health care and education systems are required very urgently; and these are what we need to secure our future. Federal tertiary educational institutions must be revamped in both hardware and software. Teachers and lecturers should earn not only living wages but also salaries that return dignity to that profession; and attract and retain some of our best brains as we knew it before Ibrahim Babangida came to destroy our education system.

The National University Commission should stop granting approval to states to have universities when primary and secondary schools are in tatters. In the same vein, the federal government should stop setting up additional universities until the existing ones are strengthened to meet high standards.

Security

Unfortunately, you have not taken any security steps, so to speak, since you took over power. You have only focused on the economy. You are only 17 days in power, and about 150 Nigerians have already been killed by non-state actors under your watch. If you think I am making this up, Amnesty International had already tallied 123 people by your 14th day in office. So, do the maths and you have 9 people killed each day! If you don’t send the right signal early to these  criminals, the number will skyrocket, and will dent your credibility.

You need to roll up your sleeves  quickly to tame this evil. Your predecessor paid lip service to security and allowed the cancer to spread. The North West (add Niger state) that was entirely peaceful has been taken over by bandits. Bigots want to drive away Southern Kaduna and Plateau people from their ancestral lands by all means possible. Herdsmen, or people claiming to be so, want to take over the fertile lands of Benue and other places by force. The North East has not known peace since Boko Haram insurgency began in 2009. And the known unknown gunmen have made the South East extremely unsafe.

You need to act and act fast. Don’t focus only on the economy; you need human beings to stay alive and safe to run the economy. The economy is made for the living and not the living for the economy. The earlier you acted on your new security architecture, whatever that means, the better for the people of Nigeria. Among others, your security architecture must include reduction in unemployment rates and ranching for genuine cattle rearers.

Remember it is for the reason of the security of lives and property that your office and title are the president and commander in chief of the armed forces of the federal republic of Nigeria. So, show very early in your regime that you are not only the president but also the commander in chief of the armed forces by taming insecurity in the land.

Last Word:

And if you are so hungry as to add a serving to your plate, let it be a programme that aims to unify the country. Again, your predecessor put a knife through the heart of the country and divided us into several pieces. Try looking for some glue to hold us together again.

For now, best wishes, sir.

Esiere is a former journalist!

©️2023