President Bola Tinubu in his uncoordinated policies has turned Nigeria to a hell of sorts and he may not need an Ndume to warn him of the consequences of his actions.
Senator Alli Ndume is very difficult to situate; a friend of the people or their enemy? He has been in the senate since the resumption of democracy in 1999 and as such he can be identified with whatever has been good or bad with democracy in the nation. At once he could look like he’s a friend of the poor and helpless Nigerians and at the other times he could look and sound like their worst enemy. At a time, he sponsored a bill on ‘unexplainable wealth’ that was designed to catch Nigerians that make their money through the back door. You can be sure they are in the majority in our government since 1999. Money stolen either in a previous government or in the civil services of the country is used to contest elections, hire thugs, buy votes and either become a president, a governor or honourable member of a dishonoured legislative assembly. Ndume’s bill was thwarted by his colleagues who know they are the target of it. Nobody cuts himself with a knife he bought. Ndume was angry because his attempt to befriend Nigerians failed. But the same Ndume when members of the green chamber as publicly announced by their leader, Akpabio received a ‘token’ 2 million naira each as holiday allowance chided Nigerians who felt outraged by the amount: “how much is two million.” Two million was nothing to Ndume and his colleagues, no more than a taxi fare for a mistress but to millions of Nigerians who always have nothing to eat and who die daily because of health care infrastructure decay, two million naira means the difference between life and hell. Many of them have only read the figure on paper, they have never touched it nor have they dreamed of it.
Ndume again came out smoking when it came to the green chamber to decide the death penalty or otherwise for drug barons. Of course it is always whispered that not a few of those who seat comfortably in our law making assemblies are carriers of illicit drugs. Ndume felt they are much more dangerous to the nation wherever they are and so the law must kill them. And so while Senator; former governor of Edo State and former labour leader, Adams Oshiomole who gave different military governments a run for their monies was arguing that the decision on life and death should be well debated and not done in a haste, Ndume felt there should be no delay. He told Seun Okinbaloye of Channels Television that drug dealing is more dangerous to the economy of the nation than corruption by politicians. Corruption among the legislators is infinitesimal compared to the general corruption in Nigeria.
Ndume waxed bold, he would not come out in the open to say that he is clean. But if legislators don’t collect the corruption money they collect they will have nothing to distribute to their people and will not return to the Senate. Alarming, but Ndume is not the first big politician to say that. Late Abubakar Rimi, former governor of Kano State and prominent politician, once said on public television that when politicians steal money they distribute it and so they can’t be as rich as military government actors who stole theirs and keep it. So it has become the democratic culture in Nigeria for political actors to ‘steal and distribute’ and return in elections to continue the cycle of ‘steal and distribute.’ Ndume also came out very strongly to shout to high heavens when the man he helped install, President Bola Tinubu asked a department of CBN to be transferred to Lagos where a new facility has been provided to ameliorate staff congestion in the Abuja headquarters of the bank. Ndume who is said to have some relatives among those affected by the order instantly warned Bola Tinubu that his order if effected will “have consequences.” At once Ndume took the path of selfishness and abandoned the defence of the masses he had poised to work for. Bola Tinubu went on with his order and those affected are either now in Lagos or have resigned. It is reported that sons of the high and mighty who did not want to endure the hustle and bustle of Lagos planned to resign. They are spoilt children and Ndume is their father and spokesman. The whole nation, at least the majority poor are waiting to see the consequences promised for Bola Tinubu, perhaps in 2027 when the president will obviously ask for a second term.
But Ndume or no Ndume, 2027 looks very shaky for President Bola Tinubu. He himself warned at a campaign for the 2023 elections that if he didn’t get electricity in the country right, Nigerians should not give him a return vote for a second term. But he has done one year now and the man he put in the Power ministry Wahab Adebayo Adelabu, an accountant will be better suited at a less strategic ministry than a power ministry. Everything he has done since he assumed duty gives no confidence that Tinubu will keep his promise to fix “electricity by all means.” As I write, all the labour unions in the country are on the streets protesting the recent electricity tarrif hike that set the power industry more in confusion. Adelabu created a band A consumer group which he promised twenty hours of power supply daily. Most in that band are industries and manufacturers. For manufacturers who can conveniently pass the excess cost which is very huge to the consumers of their products, their warehouses are filled up with stocks which has no buyers making their staff fear an impending downsizing; for hospitals also put in band A it will mean a death blow to what the nation has left in its decrepit health infrastructure. A prominent and zealous medical practitioner based in Porthacourt, Rivers State, Dr. Okoye who has been campaigning zealously to educate Nigerians about the various diseases that they have misunderstood, turned his campaign on Facebook recently to an appeal to Bola Tinubu and his Power minister, Adebayo Adelabu to reverse the power hike if they don’t want to kill many Nigerians. He spoke about a month’s bill of 25 million naira his hospital received recently. He said those medical practitioners who came from abroad because of patriotism may have to pack up and relocate again. He gave examples of how expensive energy cost may affect their practice especially in the preservation of drugs they use and how that might result in the death of many Nigerians.
President Bola Tinubu in his uncoordinated policies has turned Nigeria to a hell of sorts and he may not need an Ndume to warn him of the consequences of his actions. Nigerians are sending warning signals but Tinubu and his ministers keep making mistakes and turning a blind eye. The pressure have so much piled up on Nigerians that Christians who used to preach to their prospects about hell as a means of cowering them into their faith may have to find another style as Nigeria itself has become one huge inferno that’s hotter than hell. It doesn’t appear that the president is in touch with the reality of Nigerians. From his removal of oil subsidy to the electricity price hike and now the nebulous cybersecurity tax, Nigeria has become unlivable. A neighbor who used to come on visits regularly to this writer suddenly stopped coming. When I called to find out, he told me he would come the next day. When he showed up, it was tale of woes. His wife had been ill and after accumulating a bill over N100,000, the hospital advised him to take his wife back home because if in just two weeks of admission he had accumulated such a huge amount he could imagine how much he would owe in one month. The wife is diabetic. The doctors have become wiser, when they know the poor can’t pay their bills or that the ailment is terminal they carefully advise the relatives to take their sick home. They won’t say this but generally the advise seems to be go and prepare to bury the sick.
My friend is not literate, so I braced up to tell him the truth: “because you don’t have money the hospital has carefully told you to go and prepare to bury your wife.” He has been at home with his wife taking care for her. He has had to clear the defecation of the wife daily and that has been a horrible work for a man of his old age. Somebody has also suggested a nearby teaching hospital to him but they told him he would have to keep 500,000 naira for the treatment. Where will he get that kind of money, he asked me. When he told me his experiences with the care of the wife, I braced up again to tell him he should prepare for the worst. He knows his problem too well. It is because he has no money to spend, and he kept silent for about thirty minutes we spent together because he had to rush back home to feed the wife. In the few months I had not seen him he had lost so much weight due to the problem he had to contend with.
Another man was buried near me in the slum we all live in. I had not known he was there but I knew him for his youth. He had a sore that became gangrene and nobody took him to the hospital because nobody can afford the money. They left him and watched him till he died. He was quickly disposed off in a hurriedly dug grave and everybody dispersed. “When beggars die …” Poor me, I couldn’t help, Tinubunomics has dug a deep hole in my pocket. We are living in hell. Prices keep spiking and spiking as Tinubu keep absenting himself from the country. What interests Tinubu is the Lagos-Calabar coastal road contract awarded to Chagoury. Both the president and Atiku Abubakar, former vice president and co-contestant in the election that brought Tinubu to power with every imaginable controversy have been shouting at one another over the contract, which has been described as done in secrecy since it did not pass through the due process of contract awards. Atiku and Tinubu can keep doing their cat and mouse game while Nigerians continue to die in hunger and in the hell that their country has become, courtesy of ill-conceived policies by so called technocrats who are nothing but anti-people and sadistic killjoys. But one day will certainly come. It will be a day of reckoning.
First Published in METRO
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Tunde Akande is both a journalist and pastor. He earned a Master’s degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos.
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