Tinubu: Globetrotting, Gloating And Chest-Beating

One of the things Nigerians had against their former president, Muhammadu Buhari, was that he travelled too often and in the process, was ‘unaware’ of the difficulties they faced at home.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who promised to continue where Buhari stopped, is now on the same trajectory. Tinubu actually looks set to better Buhari’s record in every ramifications.

Whereas Buhari was reported to have travelled abroad 51 times while in office for eight years, Tinubu has reportedly travelled abroad 11 times in less than six months. Beat that!

Apart from being united with Buhari in globetrotting, the two Nigerian rulers share another thing in common: they tend to open up when they are abroad.

While Buhari could ‘misyarn’ abroad, especially Germany, Tinubu can gloat and beat his chest abroad, especially in Germany.

Anyone who thought that Buhari was completely ineffectual and ineffective in office would think again if they remembered how he threw the ‘other room’ into the Nigerian lexicon. It was in Germany that Buhari told the world that his wife, Aisha, was meant for the ‘other room’.

In his recent trip to Germany, Tinubu showed that he would not be outdone by Buhari as he gloated that he made or even created Lagos.

He said, “Today, I can proudly beat my chest that Lagos state is on the horizon and the fifth-largest economy in Africa, rising from zero. That is the track record that got me into this office as the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

Our president didn’t stop there. He told his audience that he deserved a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for the reforms he had embarked on that had remade Nigeria.

He said, “Nigeria voted for me for reforms and from day one of my inauguration, I started the reforms. To me, if you didn’t mention me in the Guinness Book of Records, I’d strive to find a way to insert myself because I did it without expectation.”

This wasn’t the first time our president would gloat about removing fuel subsidy without any resistance from anywhere.

While in France, Tinubu had narrated how he overuled current Minister of Finance, Wale Edun, and current Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake, to declare that subsidy was gone.

“I let out the giant elephant of fuel subsidy without bringing down the house,” the president told Nigerians in France.

Talking recently on the effect of subsidy removal on government finances, Edun disclosed that government revenue had shot up from about N650bn a month to more than N1tn a month.

Before the government officials drain our ears with how successful the present administration has been, it is important to remind them some elementary economics.

There are three players in any economy – the government, businesses and households.

Yes, the government is making more money than it was making during the tail-end of the Buhari years. However, the households are shrinking and can hardly afford the essentials required for everyday living. Galloping inflation has driven basic commodities beyond the reach of majority of Nigerians.

If the households are shrinking, imagine then what is happening to businesses, especially the micro, small, snd medium scale businesses that are said to be the engine of the economy. I have a practical experience in this regard.

Since I exited paid employment about two years ago, I established a micro business that is on the throes of death. My friend, Aniefiok Udoh, had warned me against setting up anything that depended on energy because ‘NEPA’ could easily kill it.

Instead of listening to Aniefiok, I invested hope and in two generators – one powered by diesel and a smaller one powered by petrol. Now, both fuels are out of reach. I heard that petrol generators could be converted to use cooking gas. We have done the conversion and the price of gas has also to the rooftop.

From all indications, the best thing to do is to harvest the business and move on. I have not done this for two reasons. One, where do you move to? Two, the business is now surviving on sentiments. Not mine, but my wife’s! She asked me to hang on. Perhaps, things could get better!

That’s the hope the governments have been selling to emaciated households and businesses. They sell hope of a better future in the long run. However, they borrow on our behalf and acquire exotic cars for legislators as reward for approving the budget. They spend N1.5bn to buy a fleet of cars for the First Lady, budget billions of naira to furnish their houses to taste and even to acquire yachts. They live in the short run and ask others to hope in long run. Are we not all dead in the long run? Lord Maynard Keynes and some other leading economists think so.

There are reasons why we should watch Tinubu’s chest beating. One, you need to be afraid of a man who claims to have made Lagos from nothing as recent as 1999.

Two, both Tinubu and Lai Mohammed belong to same school of thought as well as the same political party. It was Lai Mohammed that claimed that the Buhari administration had technically defeated Islamist jihadists within 100 days of its assumption of office. To this school of thought, you could achieve anything if you consistently claimed it.

Three, the National Bureau of Statistics can be an ally of government and can do statistical engineering to achieve whatever is desirable. By revising its methodology, the NBS recently put the country’s unemployment rates at 5.3 per cent for the last quarter of 2022 and 4.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2023, down from 33.3 per cent. Mark Twain popularised the saying, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

As for the Guinness Book of World Records, our president does not need to strive to find a way to insert himself there for two reasons.

One, it could lead to desperation as Nigerians are not in a hurry to forget the ‘snatch it, grab it and run with it’ syndrome that resulted from ‘Emi lo kan’ drive.

Two, many citizens believe that Tinubu, as the Melchizedek of our time, already has a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. Perhaps, only President Donald Trump can dare to compete with him, but Trump is ultimately a learner in comparison to Tinubu.

Dr. Amaefule wrote in from [email protected]

Disclaimer: This article is entirely the opinion of the writer and does not represent the views of The Whistler.