BOLA Tinubu is getting his priorities mistaken on the financial system and restructuring. In his response to the Patriots’ name to undertake constitutional reform, the President replied that his focus is first on the financial system. After that, he may flip to political reengineering. That is unlucky. It is the mistaken order; this places the cart earlier than the horse. Unless the President reverses his focus, his Presidency is doomed.
Political methods underpin financial success. Tinubu is making a mistake by reordering the system.
Nigeria took a dangerously mistaken flip with the January 1966 coup that overthrew the First Republic. Since then, a pluralistic nation has been foolishly mimicking a unitary polity. That is the street to perdition. With no aware official effort to return to the beliefs of federalism, the outcomes are devastating economically and politically.
Since he took energy in May 2023, Tinubu has been flailing towards financial headwinds. He cancelled petrol and electrical energy subsidies and floated the naira to no avail. Instead, 10 days of #EndBadGovernance and starvation protests vividly introduced residence the magnitude of Nigeria’s financial mess.
Despite Tinubu’s financial reform, the foreign money misplaced 68 per cent of its worth by February. It exchanges round N1,600 to $1 now from N465/$1 pre-Tinubu. Multinationals are leaving; energy era is at 5,000 megawatts; the infrastructure deficit is at N17 trillion per the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria.
Shortly after Tinubu was declared the winner of the 2023 presidential poll, Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, presciently argued that Tinubu would fail in his financial undertakings if he stalled restructuring Nigeria first.
Indeed, Nigeria’s issues predate Tinubu. It is worse that the President is toeing the identical slim line as his predecessors. When they win workplace, they flip their again on restructuring. That is shortsightedness. Tinubu’s authorities went a step additional by instigating the Supreme Court to grant monetary autonomy to native governments, turning the precept of the centre and the federating models on its head.
Long earlier than he gained workplace, Tinubu was famend for advocating restructuring. He created 37 native council growth authorities as Lagos governor (1999-2007). In 2017, Tinubu stated, “Things will be in a constant state of disequilibrium and irritation if the clamour and calls for restructuring are not heeded.” Due to political exigency, Tinubu has turned full circle on restructuring. This is absurd.
It is unwise to assume the 1999 Constitution can instigate financial revival. Kingsley Moghalu, a member of the Patriots, captured it succinctly: “Nigeria today appears rudderless, with no particular direction. Our country has no purposeful destiny that we can say with conviction is our lodestar. Our citizens are increasingly unsure of what being a Nigerian means.”
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Nigeria is extra divided than ever immediately for the reason that Civil War resulted in 1970. The Federal Government is just too highly effective with 68 gadgets within the Exclusive Legislative List. In the opposite 24 federal constitutions globally, energy is devolved with fiscal federalism and policing decentralised. In the US, the LGs are underneath the management of states. For a multicultural polity, federalism is the most effective system.
Therefore, Tinubu ought to summon the political guile to provoke Nigeria’s restructuring reasonably than play video games with spurious monetary autonomy for LGs.
For emphasis, Nigeria ought to return to the First Republic structure. The areas loved autonomy with their police forces and retained 50 per cent of their revenues. They despatched 30 per cent of the revenue to the centre (distributable pool) and 20 per cent to the centre. These days, the centre greedily appropriates 52.6 per cent of the income. This is unjust. It leaves the 36 states scuffling with 26.7 per cent and the 774 LGs sharing 20.6 per cent.
Without returning to those tenets, Tinubu will solely go away a deadly legacy of circumlocution.