Tinubu and campaign of calumny, by Ali Idris
As has always been the case when electioneering season approaches, following Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s declaration to contest for president in 2023, there are deliberate campaigns of calumny against him, most especially in social networks, in order to influence people to change their line of thought or to blindly maintain their line of thought. There is an outburst from party members, opposition and self-acclaimed journalists peddling and sponsoring calumnious articles and dislike pictures of him.
The main issues of contention should be about the present administration policies such as socio-political logjam, security crises and abysmal, out of date and inept economic policies. Because Asiwaju is not only a stakeholder, but a key stakeholder in the current dispensation, the main points of argument should be on the administration’s egregious policies and how he expresses his opinion on them. We should have a robust discussion on rising insecurity, secessionist, record and rising inflation at around 18%, skyrocketed prices of food and related goods and services. Food inflation climbed to 20.57% making it the highest in over 11 years. Unemployment hovering at over 33% translating to some 23.2 million people, wasteful and horrendous CBN anchor borrowing that incurs over N379bn debt, record borrowing of over 20 trillion, unimaginable corruption, nepotism at its most extreme, Naira from N197 to official fixed rate of N379, ridicule foreign exchange regime. Those are significant debates that needs to consume our time and not to circumvent our sense of reasoning that will appeal to our emotion and psyche. Nigeria is not an Eldorado in this regard, to be honest, no national leader can be so critical of the administration he wants to replace. The enthusiasm with which this government is inaugurated will serve as a big lesson. No candidate can be blackmailed into oblivion, even if there is no messiah among them all. It is necessary to make every effort to examine each candidate’s policy document.
Few months after his inauguration as a Lagos state Governor, Tinubu-led administration is the first state that attempt to initiate a giant independent power project that was to generate up to 290 megawatts at a cost of $225 million by Enron, an American company that declare bankruptcy in 2001. Even though the project has not seen the light of the day, it takes a vision for someone to initiate such ambitious project at that material time. He knows that access to power can expand businesses and create job opportunities. Stable electricity leads to the creation of new markets, provide more opportunities for individuals to earn an income and lift them, their families and communities out of poverty. In 1999, Lagos state monthly internal generated revenue was N600 million. But under the inventive and visionary leadership of Asiwaju, he commence a transformational reform of internally generated revenue process, the result of which Lagos State has grown its IGR from N600m monthly in 1999 to over N45bn monthly now, a staggering increase of 7,400 per cent. Most state governments rely primarily on statutory allocations to perform basic governance functions. Many states are totally handicapped in terms of running costs without monthly federal allocations. According to 2020 half year report released by NBS, Kano state with all it attributes recorded only N17.5bn which is highest IGR in North West region, while Lagos recorded highest IGR of N204.51bn in the same period. For the country to have self-sustainability we have to turn around from being an oil dependent economy.
According to Bloomberg NEF forecasts, Electric Cars and Vans will be cheaper to produce than the conventional fossil-fuel powered vehicles by 2027, and tighter emissions regulations could put them in pole position to dominate all new car sales by the middle of the next decade, research has found. By implementing these ground-breaking ideas, the Lagos administration has created a ready-to-use blueprint that other states might use to alleviate the economic troubles that awaits us all.
When General Abdul Fattah Al-Sisi, the present president of Egypt ousted a democratically elected government of late Mohammed Morsi, there was a lot of apprehension, frustration and anguish. But Al–Sisi has already taken the world by storm. Soon Egypt will rival Dubai in amazing infrastructure, quality life style and holiday destinations of the world famous.
In last six years, inflation rates were lowered from 33% to 4% and the unemployment rate ranged from 13% to 7.2%, while the budget deficit went down to 7.3% from 14%. He managed to complete a national mega projects in a very short period, including, the establishment of the world’s biggest power plants for conventional and renewable energy and a new administrative capital equivalent to twice the size of Cairo. It’s set to boast the world’s sixth longest high-speed network after the completion of its first high-speed electric railway. It doesn’t take a rocket science to achieve all these; all that is needed is visionary and purposeful leadership.
Why exhilarate the mentees and castigate the mentor?
Run! Asiwaju, we await your policy document with keen interest.
Ali Idris can be reached on 08099834269.