Shortly after President Bola Tinubu assumed office in 2023, Prof Wole Soyinka paid him a courtesy visit in Aso Rock. Many would remember that Prof. Soyinka said he, during the visit, humorously called the President, Olorikunkun. In Yoruba, olorikunkun means the stubborn, strong-headed, hard-nosed, never-say-die person, often imbued with unusual courage, one who never backs off from tough decisions or yields easily…
As it turned out, courage has been the singular attribute of President Tinubu that has attracted most of his supporters and admirers to him. Tinubu is famously remembered as member of NADECO, the group that took the physical and financial risk of taking on the annuller-regime of Abacha and wrestling it to the ground to secure democracy for Nigerians; somehow, his main political rivals today recoiled into comfortable shells offshore, waiting for the nuts of democracy to be pulled out of the fire for them.. Tinubu successfully withstood the attempt of the Obasanjo federal government to weaken Lagos State financially by starving it of its statutory allocations. Even when late President Buhari’s body language showed everyone that he would rather Tinubu did not succeed him as president and the cabal in Aso Rock at the time employed all devices to stop him, Tinubu refused to be thrown under the bus…and he prevailed.
By confronting enduring fundamental politico-economic problems that his predecessors fled from even when it was clear that the non-resolution of such issues was unsustainable for the country’s stability, the President validated his credentials as a courageous leader. Indeed, upon taking power on 29 May 2023, President Tinubu, as he revealed afterwards, said that he was emboldened to unveil his first major policy reform on his first day in the job, stoppage of fuel subsidy, because he was suddenly gripped by the spirit of courage as he delivered his inauguration address. Were the event of that historic day to be recorded in The Old Testament of The Bible, the scripture would probably have read something like ”.. And the people of the country chose for themselves a new ruler. On the day appointed for the feast and rejoicing to mark the beginning of his reign, a great multitude gathered in the centre of the chief city of the country… Then the new ruler was called upon to address his subjects throughout the vast expanse of land, mountains and water of the country. Suddenly, as he began to speak to the multitude, the spirit of courage descended upon him and he pronounced changes in the economic governance of the country, the like of which had not been witnessed before then..”.
Since taking power 39 months ago, Tinubu, on my score-card, has introduced four remarkable politico-economic reforms, namely, removal of fuel subsidy, unification of the foreign exchange rates of the national currency, reform of tax administration and electricity reform; the fifth reform, introduction of state policing, is still in the works and expected to be rolled out before the end of the President’s first term of office.
It takes courage to embark on such sweeping reforms; that courage is also what we call ”political will”. Reforms typically step on toes by breaching vested economic and financial interests, causing discomfort, even if temporary. These ”downsides” attract both honest and mischievous criticisms to the reformist leader and that’s why most leaders avoid undertaking economic and political reforms in spite of their long-term benefits to their nations. Only outstanding, strong-headed, ”stubborn” leaders confront such defining challenges. Nigeria, in 2023, produced one such leader in Bola Ahmed Tinubu. In the militaro-political sphere, for example, it took a Tinubu to start the redistribution of Nigeria’s military assets across the country’s geopolitical zones. Hitherto, this commonsensical step had seemed like a taboo! It was unlikely that an Atiku presidency would have seen the need for it and an Obi presidency would certainly have avoided it for fear of being misunderstood in some sections of the country.
Although it is clear that the intention behind each of these reforms is to recalibrate the national economy to make life more abundant for the citizenry in the medium to long term, the President has been most attacked for his decision to stop fuel subsidy; this is out of benign ignorance or outright mischief. While it is true that it is not the job of the opposition to sell the government’s policies to the people, it is not acceptable that the naivety of the public should be weaponised to mislead them into rejecting policies designed and implemented in their best interest. Even then, Team Tinubu would probably have adopted the same negationist posture as today’s political opponents were positions reversed between the two sides…
To be clear, no government would undertake a reform whose outcome was calculated to be medium-long term or permanent impoverishment of the population. A reform, like capital investment, needs not, and most often, does not produce instant (short-term) gains which accrue mostly in the medium to long term (from upwards of 5 years). However, the road to the medium-long term passes necessarily through the short-term. The short-term is the immediate post-reform period which demands to be deftly managed. Failure to manage this period strategically could leave the door open for opponents of a reform-inclined government to mischaracterise reform efforts as organised to punish the people with impossible living conditions. In truth, the Tinubu administration appeared to have faltered somewhat in managing its post-reform short-term but, luckily for the administration, as we’ve begun to see, it can still correct its lapses and errors.
For some strange reasons, the Tinubu administration did not communicate adequately with the people with respect to the imperative of the fuel and foreign exchange subsidy removals on the one hand and the salutary impacts of these headline reforms. It took the recent appearances of the Chairman of the Nigerian Revenue Service (NRS) and the Minister of Finance, respectively, to explain the workings and demonstrable gains of the two reforms to the Nigerian public!
It is straightforward to understand that fuel subsidy removal has produced positive effects by way of freeing up for alternative uses, funds hitherto burnt off on subsidisation of wasteful or avoidable consumption which are thereby eliminated or drastically reduced. Although subsidy is equivalent to ”cash gift” from the State (the Government), most Nigerians were unaware that the Government didn’t have the cash (the surplus) to do it but was borrowing to make ”cash gifts”! What reasonable, upright person does that? Gift what you don’t have?
It is presumed that the ultimate objective of any reform is to accrue socio-economic benefits to the greatest number of the citizens. Since the greatest number of the population is made up of the low-income and the poor classes, reform implementation must ensure that these classes of the citizenry are the priority and demonstrable beneficiaries of each reform. Such a focus is in the best interest of the reformist government itself because the two lowest social classes account for the overwhelming percentages of voters in most countries. A government that focuses policy attention on these classes cuts off oxygen supply to its electoral opponents. It’s often unclear why many political leaders discard this template, the same that made Chief Obafemi Awolowo a cult hero in the former Western Region of Nigeria to this day!
Debate as to whether the two headline reforms, removal of fuel subsidy and unification of foreign exchange rates have benefitted the greatest number of people, or anyone at all, is unabated. While the government proclaims that the reforms have positively impacted the lives of Nigerians, critics and opponents of the government argue that the reforms have impoverished (negatively impacted) the lives of the majority. The truth must lie between the two extremes.
The Federal Government (FG) showcases the favourable impacts of the removal of fuel and foreign exchange (FX) subsidies to include the increased flow of cash to the sub-national governments, making non-payment of salaries and pension allowances a thing of the past (this is a fact), the establishment (re-activation) of the student loan fund scheme (NELFUND) which today ensures that no Nigerian drops out of tertiary institutions for lack of funds (this is a fact, a huge burden taken off the heads of poor and low-income parents), facilitation of home-acquisition loans by civil servants (this is a fact that benefits all categories of workers), cash transfers to reported 9 million households, equivalent to assistance to around 40 million persons based on average household number of between 4 and 5 persons (this is a fact, albeit subject of controversy as to its efficiency and transparency), road infrastructure projects across the country (this is a fact, albeit subject of controversy as to whether what is urgently needed is what is being constructed). However, opponents of the administration claim that the country has been overtaken by deepening widespread poverty because food and transport costs, in particular, have risen sharply (this is not untrue). Just as it is legitimate for the government to overstate its achievements and overrate its performance, it is legitimate for opponents (who are by no means, enemies) of the government to downplay the government’s successes and discount its achievements to zero, where possible! It is up to the attentive citizens to find out the truth in-between the two positions.
It is interesting to observe that President Tinubu has been attacked most for the removal of fuel subsidy even though the stoppage of FX subsidy by adopting a unified, market-determined rate exerts comparable upward push on food and transport costs as does fuel subsidy removal. For instance, a leading opposition candidate is promising to restore fuel subsidy if voted to power but he refuses to promise restoration of foreign exchange rate subsidy. If the goal of restoring fuel subsidy is to bring down food, transport and other costs of living, why is the candidate not promising simply, to restore the Naira to its official pre-May 2023 value of N460.2/$, to ”crash” prices on his first day in office? How is the one (fuel subsidy) unacceptable but the other (FX subsidy) is acceptable to him? This is a proof that the policy reversal promised by that candidate is not credible because it is impossible to implement; in truth, restoration of fuel subsidy is tantamount to restoration of foreign exchange subsidy.
For those who have forgotten or were children or were not born as of 1982, it is useful to recall that, as of that year, one Naira bought $1.49 and one Naira bought 5 litres of petrol; yet, by 1983, there were cries of hunger in the land so much so that late Umaru Dikko, late President Shagari’s minister of transport and influential member of his party retorted that he had not seen anyone eating from the dustbin. Dikko was widely criticised for that remark. The pertinent question here is: if subsidised fuel and Naira-exchange prices were sole guarantees of cheap food and transportation on a sustainable basis, why did it not happen in 1983? Once you get your economics wrong, your politics must fall apart. This is the lesson few politicians are willing to learn or to accept…to their peril!
Whereas President Tinubu has been implementing the reforms that Nigeria truly needs, he seems, in my opinion, to have frittered away part of the praises he rightly deserves for his courage. This resulted from three main flaws: (1) wrong timing of subsidy-savings-funded new infrastructural projects (2) wrong choice of implementation templates for poverty alleviation and (3) omission or under-deployment of the right transmission mechanisms to deliver reform dividends.
Observers noted recently the new sense of urgency shown by the FG with regard to resolving the hardship faced by Nigerians in the matter of road transportation; in addition to high fares and fueling costs, travellers and motorists suffer painful gridlocks due to the extremely bad conditions of federal highways. Also, these are the same arteries by which food products from farming communities are moved to the urban consumption centres. How would food prices come down where what is produced cannot be easily transported to reach the markets? How do you reduce poverty when millions of productive hours are lost to traffic gridlocks and impassable highways? It was therefore an error on the part of the FG that reconstruction and expansion of the existing stock of federal roads were not top priority in the deployment of the savings accruing from fuel and FX price reforms. It was an error to choose superhighways when ”superlow-ways” (good highways) are what touch the lives of the people now! This is why the Tinubu administration is not being enthusiastically celebrated for starting the construction of two superhighways but berated for the failure to keep interstate highways in motorable condition for painlesss movement of goods and persons. Of course, the long-term strategic benefits of the coastal as well as the Badagry-Sokoto superhighways are undeniable; however, by rushing into these futuristic, money-guzzling projects while the economy was yet to stabilise fully, the Tinubu administration was spreading itself too thing on the ground. Commendably, the FG seems to have started to correct these lapses by ordering emergency repairs of the affected roads and recommitting to timely roll-out of CNG-powered vehicular transport solutions. Here, the opposition deserves to be praised for keeping the government on its toes even if its primary interest is to extract maximum electoral profit from the FG’s policy-implementation/policy errors.
Since the government is fully aware that the ”no-income” and low-income people are the most vulnerable to policy-reform shocks that are transmitted instantly through all sectors of the economy, these classes of people ought to have been the primary and immediate focus of the government; these classes also have the distinction of forming the bulk of the voting population. To free resources for priority social needs, it is advised that, to the extent that the contract terms allow for it, the execution of the superhighway projects should be paused for at least 180 days so that funds may be redeployed to country-wide reconstruction/upgrade of federal roads. This can only earn more support for the administration. In any case, the administration would do well to remember that if it put its own chances in jeopardy, a successor administration was not bound to execute those mega-projects at breakneck speeds.. Moreover, it is improbable that, even at the current tempo, those two projects would be completed before the end of President Tinubu’s second term in office, if he won reelection in 2027.
The conditional cash transfer scheme via which the Tinubu administration declares to have reached 9 million poor households
Is an untidy mechanism that President Tinubu should never adopted. Not only is the scheme prone to abuse, as reports have lately indicated, the fact of its selectivity and non-universality makes it arbitrary in application. Whereas 9 million households correspond to around 40 million persons, beneficiaries of the scheme hardly manifest themselves anywhere. Yet, the government reports that it has poured some N600 billion into the scheme already. No wonder the Tinubu administration has hardly earned any credit or favourable review in respect of the cash transfer scheme.
An effective pro-poor intervention programme should provide simultaneous overarching relief to the entire population of poor households without exception, in the most transparent manner such that no qualifying household could have been missed; in the market-place, prices are not set selectively for the rich and the poor not are households separated into poor and extremely poor.. The conditional cash transfer programme clearly fails the transparency test and it should be discontinued. In its place, the government should intensify the use of the wide range of fiscal instruments at its disposal. Take for instance, import-duty waiver.
In July 2024, the FG approved a 150-day duty-free window for four staples: maize, brown rice, wheat/flour, beans; duty-waiver is a subsidy that reflects in lower product shelf-price which directly benefits the consumer; it is an alternative type of subsidy that cannot be stolen or smuggled. That measure benefits all households simultaneously, particularly the poor households which mostly consume these items directly or as manufactured products (bread). The waiver regime should have been widened to additional items including milk, sugar, vegetable oil, fish, chicken, beef, medicines… and prolonged much further than 150 days, to upwards of 36 months. Since such waivers are not permanent, they cannot destroy local production which can equally receive non-cash incentives in various forms.
By using fiscal levers, the FG would have been able to re-route funds legally out of the federation account to benefit the people directly. It has been noted that most of the spendings by the state governments from their vastly increased monthly allocations hardly benefit their people, who in turn look up to the FG for palliatives. It is therefore unwise for the FG to accumulate funds in the federation account for states, which are fiscally autonomous in the use of resources, to fritter away on unnecessary projects, as President Tinubu himself observed recently, while their peoples suffer greatly. A commendable exception is the Ebonyi State government one of whose social support programmes is the payment of monthly stipends to all of its citizens aged over 60 years. That is an all-encompassing and transparent intervention. This is not to say that the states don’t need lots of money to meet the very numerous genuine and priority needs of their peoples: schools, health centres, markets, intra-state roads, social housing projects…
Another lever that President Tinubu ought to have used intensively is discriminatory VAT whereby goods and services consumed by the low-income and vulnerable class are VAT-exempted while the burden is transferred to non-essential and luxury goods; in this wise, soft-drinks, beverages, milk, sugar, vegetable oil and such-like should be VAT-free. This is analogous to the approach adopted by the administration to shift income-tax burden away from low-income earners to the high-income and rich classes. The rich have enormous capacity to absorb reform policy-shocks which the vulnerable class obviously does not have. For instance, a woman with a collection of luxury automobiles in her garage would not wail in the street if tomorrow, a litre of fuel sells for N2,000. It’s the poor man who owns no vehicle who would cry loudest to the embarrassment of the government. Ordinary commonsense dictates that policy-implementation measures should first focus on the transportation needs of the man and not on preserving the extra comfort of the woman, albeit legitimate. It is recommended that, going forward, President Tinubu should deploy all the constitutional means at his disposal to bring relief first and foremost to the less endowed class, but not by doling out cash to unverifiable clusters of beneficiaries.
Whereas it is undisputable that President Tinubu has displayed rare courage in his reform agenda, it is not clear why he has avoided some obvious, less politically-risky reform imperatives; two such reforms readily come to mind: (1) implementation of the Oronsaye report on the reform of the civil service and (2) low-profile presidency.
For a reform-oriented administration, the implementation of the Oronsaye report looks like a natural starting point. Yet, almost 4 years down the line, President Tinubu does not appears eager to implement the report. Clearly, that would have resulted in the downsizing of the federal civil service, freeing up resources to fund social safety nets and critical road, electricity and security infrastructure in the aftermath of the fuel and FX price reforms. A massive downsizing of the cost of running government, by, say, 50% (and you don’t need to sack any employees or appointees for that to happen), would have meant a saving of over N10 trillion in recurrent and statutory expenses if we used the 2026 budget estimates as an illustration.
The resultant saving from that reform alone could be smartly deployed to the reconstruction and expansion of federal roads, now in terrible conditions in several parts of the country, lowering the cost of food, medicines and other essential commodities, increased supply of subsidised agricultural inputs and mechanised services, counterpart provision (jointly, with each state government) of two meals daily for pupils and teachers of all public primary and secondary schools throughout the country for which the FG bears 60% and the State government 40%. Notice that the school-feeding programme would create thousands of jobs for suppliers of foodstuff, food vendors, catering hands and providers of ancillary services, all coming mostly from among the low-income, vulnerable classes, the most impacted by disruptive fiscal and monetary reforms; in addition, guaranteed off-takers are provided for food-crop farmers. It is programmes like this, generating extensive multiplier effects that deny opponents of the government of the ammunition they need to go on the offensive..Nothing, in my view, justifies President Tinubu’s hesitation or refusal to embrace and implement the Oronsaye report at the onset of his administration.
At the personal level, the President ought to have employed symbolic gestures to drive home his point about the urgency and inevitability of his reforms, which necessarily entail belt-tightening for everyone. Although Nigeria was financially bouyant during the Murtala-Obasanjo regime of 1975-1979, that military administration adopted what was then known as ”low profile”. This was symbolised by the fact of the head of state using a Peugeot 504 as official car. Yet, as many would remember, Nigeria enjoyed a lofty image and international prestige during that period. Once the citizens see proof of symbolic sacrifice by the leader, they are more easily persuaded to make even bigger sacrifices on their own part. Yes, we’ve now learnt that the President eats once a day and also treks to work. But, these facts are known only inside Aso Rock. What matters is what Nigerians outside the Villa perceive or observe directly.
To be clear, there’s nothing the President enjoys in office, today, that he could not afford prior to coming into office, except, perhaps, the Nigerian Air Force, his official aircraft. The whole point is about deploying empathy to power the people’s acceptance of tough socio-economic policies. Indeed, the combination of a lean federal government and an austere presidency is the joker presidential candidate Peter Obi is essentially banking upon in challenging President Tinubu for the job. To Obi’s credit, he has not disavowed any of the reforms initiated by the President, which every knowlegeable and honest person knows could not be avoided or delayed further. Apart from this joker and likely rearrangement of the infrastructural project-portfolio, to shift priority from superhighways and similar futuristic projects to the more immediate need of motorable federal highways, electric power and citizen security, it’s hard to see what else Obi or any of the other candidates could do differently to soothe Nigerians at this moment.
Ultimately, the true power of incumbency lies in the ability of the government to do now, for the people (to the extent that it’s a reasonable and feasible proposition as opposed to unrealistic, vote-baiting declarations like restoration of fuel subsidy), what the opposition can only aspire or promise to do if it gets elected. That power of incumbency is a tremendous advantage. Let President Tinubu use it to the fullest.
Nothing must discourage or scare the Olorikunkun from implementing the remaining reforms and social re-engineering that Nigeria needs to transit to a truly modern economy. He asked for this job, he got the job. He must get the job done to full accomplishment. This is his destiny and he must not run away from it.