An Appraisal Of Tinubu’s Two Years In Office -By Hajia Hadiza Mohammed

Appraising Tinubu’s performance is as easy as observing the tummy of a woman who is nine months pregnant because everything is clear and obvious. Yes, it is clear and obvious that the regime has performed poorly and failed woefully to fulfil the aspiration of the citizenry trapped in renewed hopeless, poverty and insecurity. As a colleague of mine puts it, it has been 730 days of hell, failed promises, hope betrayed and uncertainty. Indeed, in the last twenty-four months Nigerians have witnessed horror and ineptitude in unprecedented degree.

While the government make much fuss about reforms and reel out figures to confuse the masses with imaginary economic growth, the economy is in reality sliding deeper and deeper into crisis with rising cost of living, high unemployment rate, poor national productivity, increasing debt burden and low foreign direct investment, inequality and poor standard of living. Virtually all economic indicators are pointing in the negative direction with little or no hope of resuscitation. The ill-advised removal of the petroleum subsidy and the floating of the exchange rate without cushion early in the regime and the absence of a clear-cut economic management policy are the major causes of the economic problem facing Nigerians at the present. And from all indications, the government is helpless about the ugly situation despite the empty rhetoric and sustained propaganda. And a clear indication of the cluelessness of the Tinubu regime is seen in its refusal to take responsibility for its failures and the blame game that it has embarked upon ever since. The consequences of the Tinubu government’s wrong economic policies can be seen the increase in frustration, restiveness, crime and social vices prevalent in the country now.

Unfortunately, as the economic situation is worsening under Tinubu’s watch, corruption is growing in leaps and bounds. A peep into our national budget will show monies appropriated for nebulous projects while funds are borrowed to finance projects that are non-existent. And the fight against corruption seems to be kept in abeyance as the feelers coming from EFCC seems to be that their focus is mainly on the struggling, jobless street boys, known as the yahoo-yahoo boys instead of the high profile fraudsters in our government offices draining our common treasury. Apart Mr. Godwin Emefiele, the former CBN governor whom many believed is being persecuted for the currency swap project intended to frustrate electoral malfeasance before the 2023 general election and which the Tinubu’s camp interpreted to be an attempt to frustrate the Tinubu’s election bid and one or two isolated cases, there is no visible attempt to fight corruption in this regime while those with corrupt cases in the opposition are being arm-twisted into joining the ruling party in order to have their charges quashed.

Another sore note in this regime is insecurity. There seems to be no will power in this regime to fight insecurity. It is as if the government is benefiting from a feeling of insecurity prevalent in the country. Nigeria as a nation has never been as insecure as it is under the present dispensation; not even in the civil war era. Despite the trillions of Naira budgeted annually for national defense, the security situation is worsening by day, curtailing people’s movement and limiting economic activities. Nigeria is ranked among the worst terrorized nations of the world along with Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and Somalia. Cases of kidnapping, banditry and terrorism seem to have become part of everyday life in the country.

And the most dangerous thing in the nation at present is the slide towards dictatorship. There are many uncountable things Tinubu has done to exhibit his dictatorial tendencies. From the onset, it is as if his desire is not for governance but to perpetuate himself in power by any means necessary. His appointments which are lopsided in favor of his Yoruba tribe was not based on competence but for loyalty. There are plots to perpetuate himself in power as evidenced from the gale of defection from the opposition parties. There is suppression of civil advocacy and gross violation of human rights. The opposition has been infiltrated with the aim of turning the nation into a one-party state for the purpose of making his reelection bid easier.

The worst part of Tinubu regime’s actions is that they have destroyed the democracy that Nigerians labored so had to wrestle from the military juntas. They have killed opposition, suppressed free speech through many devious means and imposed a regime of lies, misinformation and propaganda on the hapless citizens. The judiciary and the National Assembly are compromised and so it is with the other pressure groups. And what they count as achievement is the induced defection from the opposition to the ruling party.

Hajia Hadiza Mohammed

hajiahadizamohammed@gmail.com

An actress, social activist, politician

London, UK