TheCable

BY OLUSANYA ANJORIN

Dear Mr. President, please accept my heartiest congratulations on your victory and best wishes for your success as you take up the responsibility of ruling the largest black nation in the world. The ladder of success is one step at a time; it takes time to climb to the top. Sometimes you might tumble and fumble, you got to climb back and continue… This you have accomplished and today there is a feather in your cap and at the moment you could see that a lot of doubters who didn’t believe in you want to be your ally just like bees are attracted to sweat; that’s the law of nature.

Conversely, there is a dying fire that has just been passed for you to watch. How you fan the ember depends on you and your lieutenants. If you believe it’s over now, you might be toying with a dying patient. I will take you to one of the greatest books, the bible. When Joshua crossed the Jordan River, the promised land was still ahead. The people of Israel still had to fight in order to possess the land and be able to enjoy all other promises of God.

I fell in love with your slogan, ‘Renewed Hope’ and I know the hearts of many people are filled with hope and optimism now that an immensely experienced politician is at the helm. There is a lot of work to be done to get us on the right path and from what you have professed when you were campaigning, we can infer that you have the passion, energy, ideas, philosophy, and vision to move us forward. Your most compelling challenge is to reunite the country. The call for restructuring and marginalisation has remained our slogan and has nearly crippled us as a nation. It will be in the interest of all to start to bridge the divide through wide consultation. Put differently, to articulate a vision of shared purpose. This shared vision is larger than our individual interests, religion, party loyalty, and tribal sentiments.

Public sentiment supports you to mobilise the country’s best minds and strengthen alliances. It would be no exaggeration to say that you are endowed with a rare genius for fishing out technocrats. I must admit that to rule a country like Nigeria takes a lot of courage and gut, which you must display by listening to the voice of the people. How you deal with diverse issues will reveal much about Nigeria’s future. This is why I am writing as a concerned citizen to let you know that you can answer a call to greatness.

A lesson to impending politicians

Your winning the 2023 election is a great lesson to all young politicians. I want you to constantly tell young politicians that the Asiwaju who emerged as the president of the country didn’t just start today. He has slowly been knitting frayed strands of governance for decades; the youth should therefore learn to climb the ladder of their profession steadily as Rome was not built in a day.

I doff my hat for you, despite all odds you refused to be cowed. How you were able to cope with the tumultuous political terrain in the country is still a mystery to many. Before the All Progressives Party’s primary held at Abuja, you went to Abeokuta, Ogun state, and poured out your mind. The aftermath was a loud hum of pity that went around the country and ‘Emi Lokan’ slogan was birthed. This is no doubt swayed some doubters to your side. The question that lingered in the mind of the people was whether he was really a weaver of men. The rest as they say is history.

Now I must remind you of some specific problems the masses are facing and want you to address:

Cabinet members: Cabinet appointment can be like a summer transfer period in football where players are bought and sold and the team strengthen their squads ahead of a new season. For a complex country such as Nigeria, no president can single-handedly runs the affairs of the country without delegation. How wisely you choose and use your cabinet will ultimately determine how successful your tenure pans out. You should avoid the systemic selection of incompetent officeholders; it set us many years back.

As hinted above, you are blessed with a web of connections and informed people that can perform well. Therefore I want to advise that you create a government where political rights will be broadly distributed and your cabinet members can be held accountable and responsive.

Education: This year, the education sector got N1.79 trillion representing 8.8% of the budget. A lot has been done in the education sector in Nigeria but there remain tons undone. All children have the right to safe, inclusive, and quality education in order to have a rewarding life. Our children should be prepared to compete in the global economy. How can we benchmark our students against the highest-performing nations in the world? How can we weed out unwholesome practices in the education sector? Teachers are the greatest natural resources in education and should be treated as such. Our nation needs a moral transformation, a holistic move from a decaying system to a fair and just system.

Deficit financing: The rising debt is like an immense soap bubble without its beauty. Nigeria is blessed with enormous natural resources including vast deposits of precious minerals such as gold, zinc, crude oil, and coal, among others. Our continued deficit budget with a higher percentage allocated to recurrent expenditure has culminated in public borrowing which has continued to increase yearly. Today our external debt according to the director general of the Debt Management Office (DMO), Patience Oniha, may hit 77 trillion. This in effect will weaken our ability to meet future domestic and international needs unless you diversify our economy. We must intentionally shift away from relying on oil as our major source of revenue.

Attracting new investors and growing our economy: There are many puzzles to solve before we can effectively walk along a tender path economically. Such puzzles include reducing the high cost of production, dipping the high-interest rate, solving the inadequate power supply, and getting rid of the subsidy, among others. Until we get to the level where businessmen and or entrepreneurs can trust the institutions and rule of law, the security of their business, property, and government policies will not attract genuine investors and our economy will continue to grow at a snail’s pace.

Similarly, no country can maintain a positive per capita income if it continually refined its products outside the shores of the country. Yes, the Dangote Refinery has commenced operation, yes, it is said that the Port Harcourt Refinery will also start operation soon. Can these refineries meet our demands without having to refine outside the country? Hmm, the removal of subsidy without adequate preparation will sink any government.

Mass welfare: The strength of a great nation is the well-being of its people. It is shocking how people can be led to fury or chaos because they were unhappy about certain anomalies unaddressed. In Nigeria, the poor have always longed for a leader who will make them happy. A leader who does this will win their hearts with charisma.

Sometimes you have to listen to the people who pour out their hearts and are deeply concerned about certain issues.  You can then draw out lessons from it and not overreact to the craziness of their expression; in this case, you won’t have to battle to sway public opinion. As the statement goes: “the impact of governance is felt and seen by its citizens”.

Power: Despite the privatisation of NEPA, the nomenclature still remains “never expect power always”. I think something is wrong with the current arrangement. After much hemming and hawing, President Muhammadu Buhari signed the electricity bill and we could see the masses erupt in applause. The signing of this bill will liberate electricity in Nigeria. Your government should start from there because adequate power supply needs to be available at a competitive price. For emphasis’ sake, if you concentrate on power, and security and grow the economy, it will make you a God-sent president. I want you to be careful of sycophants who are ingrained in lies, they see truth as false and guide charades with exquisite precision. Avoid such personalities as they will draw your government backward.

Poverty: To write about poverty in Nigeria, where do I start? A place where the son of a rich man are elegantly dressed and perfectly manicured like a plant that is fertilised and manicured while the poor man’s son is caked like a barbecued steak, and when he sleeps, his arms and legs are swollen from bug bites. In addition, the extremely poor people devour heaping platters of hunger every day and many had died as a result of malnutrition, and exhaustion.

So sad, ‘eni to kan lomo’ but can we say Nigerians are poor because we lack adequate rainfall? Can we say our climate does not allow productive agriculture? Can we say our mineral resources are inadequate? Hmm, it is really not difficult to explain why millions of Nigerians remain impoverished and helpless. It is because our leaders have enriched themselves at the expense of the poor. This narrative you can change. Will it be easy? No! There are some policies and strategies inimical to the economic development and prosperity of a nation. This you can do for you to be a distinct president.

Rule of law: As it is said, the judiciary is the last hope of the common man. History is littered with vivid examples of how your predecessor had not aligned with some rulings of the Supreme Court. Not obeying the law is like pulling down the edifice of the rule of law. I urge you to obey the law, Sir.

Oil theft: I’m stunned by the discovery some time ago that 80% of our crude was stolen. To put it crudely, girls, boys, men, and even women with babies strapped to their backs were not left out as they scoop crude oil like a column of ants that just found food. We became trapped financially by this rising oil theft. Will they continue to get away with it? The ball now rests squarely in your court.

Cabal: We have heard on numerous occasions that former President Muhammadu Buhari had a genuine agenda to transform the country but was hijacked by the cabal. Who are these cabals? Are they on the side of the masses? I pray that you should not allow the cabal to influence the good initiatives or intentions you have for Nigerians. We know that there are actors with sufficient powers that could make sure the status quo remains the same. But the available evidence suggests you have the wherewithal to eclipse them.

Laws: The problem is not a lack of law; we have the 1999 constitution, the electoral act, the criminal code/penal code, the labour act, the land use act, and various executive orders the president has signed. The main concern is that these laws, policies, and regulations have been laxly enforced. We have enough agencies to enforce these policies. For instance, economic crime can be handled by The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as well as The Independent, Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC). In areas where you want 100% performance, I suggest you set up a special task force that would monitor and revert to you.

Corruption: Corruption is like a vampire sucking from a shallow grave; milking the masses dry. We can still remember not too long ago how a python swallowed billions of Naira and decided not to vomit it. It is no longer news that our resources have been savagely plundered and projects that cost billions of Naira were completed haphazardly. What form does corruption take? It takes different forms, one is a situation where cash is piled up in a great heap in foreign territory and most of them never return for the development of Nigeria.

There is no better way to put it than to say that we are suffering from corruption, oppression, and bad education. A corrupt system where the young ones are not encouraged to use their talents, ambition, and ingenuity. We have seen in the past where those who were investigated by the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) were mostly from the opposition. This is a strong challenge to your government which the masses are hoping you would address.

Religion: It is an understatement to say that Nigerians are very religious. If religion is a yardstick to becoming an advanced country, Nigeria should be counted. There is little relationship between religion and economic success. It is the value in us that we have lost. A value of “don’t steal”, a value of omoluabi — good character. I don’t know the approach you would want to take but if I know that if I commit a crime I will not get away with it, then I will think twice.

Social infrastructure: In developed countries, public health, road networks, and electricity are essential services that the government holds important but here the services provided are half-baked. Here, projects approved for execution are not thoroughly supervised. When this happens, it is like victimising the victims which is deadly as cancer. Your cabinet members should oversee all these.You can move from the vicious cycle of “This is how we have been doing it” to a virtuous cycle of “This is what will benefit us all”.

In all fairness, nobody is expecting you to turn a mountain into a valley in a day but what we need is a radical break from the past, laying a solid foundation to becoming a giant nation the creator has endowed us to be. How can this be made possible? It is through the cabinet you assemble.

I have but one quote to add, a quote from John Kennedy. “We are doing fine but let’s do better”. Can we do better? You bet. This should be your words. It is when this happens that we can truly cling to a thread of hope that change has truly come and we can all attest to the fact that BAT is a different brand. Congratulations.

Anjorin, an inspirational speaker, columnist, and entrepreneur, writes from Lagos. He can be reached via [email protected] or +2348032826650