Tinubu Battling The Wreckages of Our Choices

By Kunle Awosiyan

For those who claim they didn’t choose President Bola Tinubu, I congratulate you. And for those who chose him and voted him as our president, I also congratulate you.

I may not know who you chose in the past, I’m sure you had chosen one of those who wrecked this country, so I rejoice that we now have a man who is helping us to pack the ruins.

Looking back, I saw a people who chose a soldier, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo over an economist, Chief Olu Falae and how Obasanjo government failed to build schools; failed to build hospitals and roads, squandered billions of Naira on power and removed governors arbitrarily.

Of course, the government got for us debt relief, recapitalised our banking sector and liberalised the telecommunications, it failed woefully in building infrastructure and creating strong institutions.

Under Obasanjo, our hospitals deteriorated the more, ASUU strike was a regular occurrence, leading to brain drains and export of our best skills.

Obasanjo ended his administration when he chose for us a spiritually, intellectually strong but physiologically weak Umoru Yar’Adua. Death snatched Yar’Adua from us and we chose Goodluck Jonathan.

I congratulate those who chose Jonathan because under him, corruption rose to the peak with former Minister of Petroleum Diezani Madueke fronting for all who needed to loot our treasury.

It was a time a leader of Pentecostal church pack dollars from Nigeria and jetted to South Africa. It was a period when about $2.1bn meant for the procurement of arms and ammunitions disappeared into the pockets of our then NSA, Dasuki and shared among politicians for Jonathan’s second term bid.

As a matter of fact, some of them confessed to EFCC that they spent the money to seek the face of God. Laughable.

Impunity reigned supreme under Jonathan even though he pretended not to know how his aides were looting the public treasury. We all remember Mrs. Patience Jonathan’s song then, “There is God oo”.

It was at the that time that the former CBN governor, now Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi raised the alarm of a missing $20 billion from the NNPC. His noise led to his removal by Jonathan who was bent on returning for second term.

Of course that God refused to return Jonathan but President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015. I congratulate those who chose Buhari because under him was a Secretary to the Government of the Federation spent millions to cut grass.

Under him was a CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele coloured our Naira currency and diverted billions of it to personal account. He started building empire and seeking to succeed his boss. He is still answering questions from the EFCC. As a matter of fact, he was the choice of many who never wanted Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to succeed Buhari.

Mefi cajoled us with the rice pyramid and those who chose him applauded him. They went to the extent of branding cars for his presidential campaign. He was a CBN governor of black market that varied his Forex exchanges as it pleased him with his cronies.

Of course Buhari did his best. At least he made Lagos-Ibadan Expressway better than what the 16 years of PDP from Obasanjo to Jonathan left for us. He also completed the Second Niger Bridge but lacked the guts to remove fuel subsidy and could not float the Naira.

Buhari with his arrays of cabal left the ruins for Tinubu who came, took the bull by the horn and declared fuel subsidy as an obsolete idea on his inauguration day.

A cross he must carry to evacuate the wreckages of our past choices.

I just passed through Lagos-Ibadan Expressway a few minutes and could see the ongoing repair of the road towards Ogere.

The portion between Interchange and Ibadan was handled by RCC and it is unfortunate that the road has cracked in less than two years that Buhari returned to Daura.

This is one of the ruins Tinubu must pack away from his way even as he builds legacy projects of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal road, Sokoto-Badagry way and two others.

During a ministerial press briefing a few days ago, the Minister of Works, David Umahi spoke extensively on these legacy projects of Tinubu and many other road projects, which will open up the economy. I congratulate those who chose Tinubu.

The president has not only removed fuel subsidy, he has diverted the dividends to state government and I’m happy that my community, Magboro, Ogun State is steadily benefitting from Governor Dapo Abiodun’s road projects.

The road from Magboro to Makogi was never in the state budget but the clamour by the residents made the government to include it in his midterm appropriation.

I once asked where is the government getting money to fix some roads now but a close aide of the governor told me that the fund is “Tinubunomics”.

State governments are now paying their debts while federal government is not relenting in making the country investable for foreign investors. The federal government also paid our external debt. The numbers and statistics are everywhere online for people to fack check.

Yes, there is hunger in the land, the food inflation persists but it is better than last year. Yes, there is still a lot to be done in the area of security, it is a war that the government is fighting even though we learnt that oppositions are behind the resurgence of the insurgents.

But today, the Forex is predictable and it’s been between N1500, N1600 to a dollar and it’s uniform unlike in the Mefi’s era where dollar exchange varied from door to door in the parallel market.

Today, the pump price of fuel is standardised against global oil market. It is predictable and it stands between N850 and N890 per litre without queue at filling stations.

Tinubu met the wreckages of a fake economy where Naira was subsidised and fuel subsidised in a country with fallen educational and health systems, deficient tax system, poor power supply and Infrastructural decay.

Many who cried today must have loved the terrible past because it favoured them. However, there is a new sheriff in town who thinks otherwise, whose ideas were unpopular in the beginning but gradually being embraced now.

A sheriff who thinks the country needs a new tax regime; local government financial autonomy, quality infrastructure and security.

The myriad of defections by politicians is a testament that more people beginning to understand Tinubu’s long term structure for Nigeria instead of a “Quick fix”, Nigerians had enjoyed with our bad choices in the past

The president did not ask opposition members to defect, he hypnotised them by his ideas and his vision for the country, which of course is not about “Quick Fix” but long term investment in infrastructure and formulation of quality policies to drive the economy.

This is going to be a long walk, which of course requires a lot of patience for Nigerians.