Agenda For The New President, By Tunde Abatan
Problems of victory are much more than those of defeat says a sage.
There is no doubt the fact that incoming President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a man of history.
But like the above saying, he has a lot of burden to contend with which he too acknowledges last Friday during the conferment on him of the exalted titled of the Grand Commander of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, GCFR.
It is an award normally reserved for leaders who have rendered their services to the nation.
Beside Tinubu, it was only the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who never ruled Nigeria but got the award in 1982 at a ceremony performed by the late Second republic President Shehu Shagari.
By that singular act, Shagari to me demonstrated act of greatness by conferring such award on a man who battled him in election twice and got defeated.
The import of the herculean task before Tinubu is reflected in taking decisions which will either reposition Nigeria’s future for better management of it’s affairs occasioned by stark realities of the day and in the face of dwindling resources.
One of the significant areas which Tinubu has to visit with gusto and determination is to reduce the cost of running bureaucracy and government which has risen in geometric proportion in the last five years.
Indeed, Festus Keyamo, immediate past minister of state for Labour looked straight into President Buhari’s eyes during last week’s valedictory service and told him that he had kept too much idle hands in government by appointing Ministers of state for ministries thereby increasing government spending. Keyamo’s standpoint is that since Ministers of state can’t take unilateral decisions except by their superiors, then there is no need for creating such positions which to him is a waste of public funds.
By inference, Keyamo is telling incoming President Tinubu to reconsider a change in approach and have a sizeable and manageable cabinet since according to him, such positions are not recognized in the 1999 constitution.
Beside the cost of running government, Tinubu may also take a fundamental look from today at the huge sum being spent on running the nations bureaucracy vis a vis the percentage of such in nations earning.
According to Senator Ali Ndume, Borno South and majority leader, the country has been having increasing recurrent expenditure for the past five years in spite of its dwindling earnings.
For instance, in 2018 recurrent expenditure was N3.5 trillion, 2019 it was N4.7trn, 2020 it increased to N4.8 trillion, 2021 it jumped to N5.9 trillion,2022 N6.9trillion while it ballooned to N8.2trillion out of it’s N21. 83 trillion budgets for 2023.
The senator wondered why this is so when there is embargo on employment by the federal government in Ministries, departments and agencies.
Senator Betty Apiafi, PDP Rivers, also frowned at the large scale of theft of oil in August last year adding that instead of the nation to produce its OPEC quota of 1.8million barrels per day, it was only able to produce 972,000 barrels per day thereby losing 859million barrels which amounts to $59million dollars per day and $9.5billion per annum.
Recently, the World Bank raised an alarm that the country is spending 96% of it’s earning to service its humongous foreign debt which stood at N77 trillion as at end of May 2023.
This means that only 4% of its earning is left to run a government of 200 million people with 65% of it consisting of youths who are the Hopes of tomorrow.
The question begging for answer which Tinubu who is famed for laying the foundation which has made Lagos Africa’s the fifth largest economy, must earnestly provide and take practical steps to solve is how he would increase the nations earning by selling its allocated quota through reducing oil theft.
This also implies that security is part of the reason the nation is suffering economic atrophy and only drastic action could solve the problem. This involves thinking out of the box.
He acknowledges this in his Friday speech and promised to act. Can he do this without stepping on big toes?
Secondly, if enough money must be made available for development by turning around the economy, then there must be a fundamental and far reaching effort to reduce size of government which Keyamo seems to be saying after serving four years in Buhari’s cabinet.
Can Tinubu dare the politicians and bureaucrats in the over 200 MDAs who are doing nothing but feed fat on the nations dwindling resources.
Can Tinubu take the bull by the horns and take urgent steps to reform the civil service and bureaucracy by doing away with over 87 MDAs which Steve Orosanye report advice former President Goodluck Jonathan to do away with which neither him nor his successor Buhari lacks the political will to do? Would the National Assembly members most of who also identify increasing recurrent expenditure swallow the bitter pill and reduce their own appointees and pecks which has also contributed to increasing recurrent expenditure since they are also being sustained by the federal government?
Since Tinubu has promised to fix the economy which along with security contributed more to our parlous state of affairs, will he be ready to go the whole hog and expand the tax net at the federal level to compel super rich individuals, corporations and multinationals to pay what is due them the way he did in Lagos and ultimately increase its Internally Generated Revenue IGR.
The decision of President Buhari to summon the courage to sign into law the bill which allowed states to build railway and generate, transmit and distribute electricity, has in a way helped Tinubu to unbundle the huge potentials of the states towards economic self-reliance.
Tinubu only needed to take a step further to allow states more access and control over resources in their states to improve their economic viability and be less dependent on the federal government.
All these fundamental policies and decisions are important if Tinubu must change the narrative.
He must be determined to rewrite the story of a sleeping giant of a country crawling due to the lack of courage, willpower and vision of previous leaders to make a realistic Change without which Nigeria will remain on same spot.
If Tinubu wants to remain a man of History and a politician who has never lost election since he joined politics in 1991,then Bold and Brave decisions implemented by a cabinet of competent men and women are what is needed to remake and Renew Hope to Nigerians and Nigeria.
The ball is in his court!