On the May 29 2024 first year anniversary of President Ahmed Bola Tinubu, a day that coincided with 25 years of unbroken democracy in Nigeria since the transition from military to civil democratic rule in 1999, the prevailing socio-economic condition of Africa’s largest democracy is indicative of both the president’s service record in one year and the state of Nigeria’s democracy in 25 years. That Nigeria’s work force across the public and private sector embarked on a paralysing industrial action about the time of the first year anniversary of President Tinubu due to his inability to raise minimum wage of workers that was due for upward review in April underscores the verdict of Nigerians on his performance in the one year he has been in office.
A combination of toxic economic policy decisions chief among which are the removal of subsidy on petrol and floating of the Naira against major currencies such as the Dollar, Pounds and Euro by the Tinubu administration has resulted into an unprecedented deterioration in the socio-economic conditions of Nigerians in a way and manner never experienced in the 63 years history of Nigeria. So devastating were the effects of this twin policy decisions that it’s socio-economic destabilization effect was instantaneous as soon as President Tinubu made his now infamous ‘’subsidy is gone’’ pronouncement on his May 29 2023 inauguration address, the pump price of petrol, Nigeria’s most utilized energy product nearly quadrupled from less than 200 naira to about 700 naira a litre. The floating of the Naira a few weeks later sent the national currency tumbling against major world currencies and crossing the 1000 naira mark against the Greenback for the first time in history. From a value of 650 naira to the dollar, the national took a deep plunge and exchanging as high as 1950 Naira to a Dollar before steadying at between1400 and 1500 naira.
For an import dependent economy that equally depends on petrol to power its Small and Medium Scale Enterprises, which dominates its Gross Domestic Production of Goods and Services, the steep rise in prices of price of important energy product and the steep decline of the value of the naira, plunged Nigerians into a bottomless pit of economic misery where there can be no light at its uncertain end. The consequential manifestation of the wrongheaded economic choices of the Tinubu administration has been the out of control cost of existence crisis that has left existing and not really living, hence requiring an upward review of the national minimum wage to living wages for the Nigerian people.
Despite the reintroduction of the old National Anthem of ‘’Nigeria We Hail Thee’’ one year after his assumption of office, the failure of the Tinubu administration to put in place measures to mitigate the socio-economic problems his policies caused meant that Nigerians are not hailing but rather wailing Tinubu’s Nigeria, where they have been pushed to the fringes of mere existence. In a country where destitution, hunger, poverty and misery is widespread, wailing, frustration and helpless form of hopelessness pervades the air while its ruling elite are still behaving like drunken sailors in charge of a sinking ship has transformed President Tinubu’s renewed hope mantra into a rhetoric of renewed hopelessness.
However, it must be said that Nigeria’s rough road to socio-economic comatose amidst heightening insecurity of lives and properties has come a long way since 1999 as a result of a combination of factors. An ethnic and religious identity based politics of democratic leadership recruitment process has instituted a corrupt patronage culture as reward system through state capture. This unique form of state capture that international scholars have described as prebendalism has given rise to a ruling political elite whose primary purpose in power is self-service and not public service. With petro-dollars flowing into the coffers of government from rents accruable from Nigeria’s oil wells through monthly allocations has incentivised the preponderance of prebendalism in Nigeria. And the fact that elected political leaders need not lift a finger to raise a hoe and till the soil before receiving huge amounts of money as monthly allocation has induced creative leadership lethargy and governance inertia hence making neo-liberal economic practices that enables the abdication of the role of government in the means of economic production under the guise of ‘’government has no business in business’’ attractive to Nigeria’s incompetent, corrupt and kleptocratic ruling elite.
The current multifaceted challenges confronting the Nigerian nation 63 years after independence, 25 years after advent of the 4th democratic republic and one year of the Tinubu administration is a cumulative effect of many years of toxic neoliberal economic practices by Nigeria’s corrupt, inept and incompetent ruling political whose misrule has reduced Nigeria from a giant to an impoverished, pauperized, traumatized and indebted dwarf that is gradually inching towards a failed state that is increasingly unable to meet up with the primary responsibility of providing welfare and security for its citizens. And nothing has underscored this failure of the Nigerian state than the current stand-off between the organized labour and the government of Nigeria over wage increase. The government lacks both the capacity to generate enough wealth to go round and the political will to develop such a capacity. And neither is the ruling elite willing to let go off their profligate and corrupt ways to allow for the re-distribution of available resources equitably.
The way out of the current socio-economic crisis and other existential challenges that confronts Nigeria will be for President Ahmed Bola Tinubu to lead the way in committing class suicide as the prevailing condition in the country requires such for the purpose of national rebirth. And to get to the Right direction of socio-economic redemption, Nigeria must take a Left turn away from the path of neoliberal economic practices and free market fundamentalism.
