A Rot Underrated, by Pius Mordi

Ensconced within the luxury confines of the Villa, awash with trillions of naira the kind never seen before, Aso Rock and the National Assembly have taken large doses of drugs to make them immune from the nightmare ordinary people are going through to keep going. Routine acknowledgement of the tough challenges facing the national economy turned out to mere platitudes.

To both arms of government, it was the duty of the people to stoically put up with the haunting hunger elicited by the decisions the government had taken. They were inevitable, the president said, if the country will turn the corner. The sacrifice will be made only by the people, but governance must go on as usual.

Luxury is a natural quest. It is usually the reward for entrepreneurship and investments into money yielding ventures. Successful business owners display their success by splurging their lifestyle with luxury living. Nobody begrudges them because they worked for it. Luxury is associated with successful business people. It elicits a level of jealousy from government who responds by imposing additional taxes on them.

However, those associated with luxury now are not those with in any productive venture. They do not own or manage any factory or productive enterprise. They made no investments that may create wealth but one that creates dubious wealth for them. They are politicians that got elected into public office or got appointed to work for the elected people. With the snap of a finger or the red pen of a President or Governor, they suddenly start living in luxury, obscene luxury.

Plato condemned the confusion of values that reside in a taste for material privilege. To love luxury, he said, is to love power, possession, and appearances. All things that the wise spurn. In Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s view, luxury corrupts morals. According to him, there are physiological effects, with men becoming soft and effeminate, hiding their bodies – deformed through excessive languishing – beneath vile ornaments. Luxury favours pride: everyone wants to stand out by possessing frivolous objects. When that level of luxury is inordinately exhibited by public office holders who make no contribution to wealth creation, it riles the people. In civilised climes, overnight luxury by public officers is frowned upon, often investigated and punished.

Not in Nigeria. Here, getting into public office grants access to public treasury which affords such persons to acquire inordinate luxury and flaunt it. For an economy on a cliffhanger, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu did what he thought was the cure all: remove petrol subsidy and float the naira. As the ill-timed measures spiralled into a catastrophic inflation, he embarked on the disastrous acquisition of luxury projects for himself and his acolytes. Members of the National Assembly duly obliged with every item of luxury he sought. They had their own wish list that could not raise eye brows in a compromised Villa.

The first set of projects saw the approval of N21 billion to rebuild the Vice President’s official residence. Then he spent N1.9 billion for the purchase of SUVs for his wife’s office and her retinue of staff, despite the constitution making no provision for such office. On the other hand, the National Assembly got N71 billion for each member to acquire their own SUV. The scandalous level of acquisition of luxury by both arms are well documented on the public domain. Does the expenditure match Tinubu’s stance that Nigerians should brace up and bear the nightmare further? Only Tinubu and his inner circle do not know this: They have lost touch with the society. And having surrounded himself with his usual crowd from his days as Lagos Governor, all he has access to is the alternative scenario they chose to paint for him.

This much he demonstrated in his address in the course of the #Endbadgovernance strife. Rather than address the issues raised by the protesters, Tinubu spent more than half of address talking about what he has done in the past 14 months. It was like a lap of honour for him and he seemed at a loss that people are complaining when he should be applauded for, by his perception, having achieved much. I think Tinubu just confirmed Senator Ali Ndume’s stance that he has been caged inside Aso Rock and has no idea what Nigerians are going through.

His aides led by Bayo Onanuga still see the protests as politically motivated. He even accused Peter Obi of Labour Party of instigating the protests. Godswill Akpabio, Senate President, even had made fun of the protesters as people wasting their time while he and his fellow makers are chopping.

What the administration is exhibiting is the inevitable outcome where the quest for luxury by holders of public office outweighs the task of working for the people. The display of conspicuous consumption is now seen on its most crude form by the people and they have had enough.

Temporary reprieve may come with the six-month suspension of duties on imported food items to force prices down. In an administration with still three years to go, the measure is too pedestrian and ineffectual. Tinubu is still detached from reality. He adopts any measure to win him broader support, no matter how weird. That is why he chose to create a Ministry of Livestock just to curry favour at a time commonsense dictates that he should at least cut down the cost of governance. His promise to cultivate 10 million hectares of land for farming is a mirage in the prevailing atmosphere of gross insecurity. He has to connect with the people, not mere platitudes as are the vibes from him.