By Bolanle Bolawole

MaTaZ ArIsInG

I received the material you are about to read from a beloved first cousin of mine, Architect Akintunde (Tunde) Imolehin way before the inauguration of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as president. Titled “ASIWAJU: 10 Things before May 29”, I cannot actually say why I did not print it before Tinubu’s inauguration since the “10 things” listed therein were meant as a guide or advice to the president. But some writings are best enjoyed posteriori than a priori. I enjoy reading old news reports and analyses and then amuse myself with how far away from the point many of them turned out to be! Try it and amuse yourself! You will discover that just a few days after they were written, how terribly many who pontificated and commented like oracles overshot the tarmac! You will then see that it is not only the prophets that goof, writers, too, do! The good side, however, as you will soon see with Akintunde’s piece, is how leaders still make avoidable mistakes despite the avalanche of good advice made available to them for free. Why this is always so should interest researchers in our institutions of higher learning. Let’s listen to Akintunde:

“Expectations are very high, Asiwaju. Many want you to succeed while not a few wish otherwise. The choice is yours. It is also our mandate. You have what it takes to be the best president Nigeria has ever produced. Going forward, I would like to submit 10 salient points (not in any particular order) you should not ignore before May 29, 2023 and even beyond. 1. MERIT FIRST: Merit is the quality of being particularly good. In all that you will do as President, place merit above all. “By merit, not favouritism, shall we attain our ends”, Plout remarked. 2. TAKING DECISIONS: You cannot make progress without making decisions. Life is determined by the decisions we make. With so many options available to us, making decisions can sometimes feel daunting and confusing. Like Napoleon Bonaparte said, “Nothing is more difficult and precious than to be able to decide”. And in the words of Maya Angelou, “You may not control all the events that happen to you but you can decide not to be reduced by them” We have seen you demonstrate uncommon courage in decision-making in the past. A particular case was the seizure of funds belonging to local governments in Lagos State by former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2005. That action provided ample opportunity for Lagos to think like a sovereign state able to overcome its financial challenges. Remember the words of Roy Disney that “Decision-making is easy when your values are clear”. To become a great president, count on the words of Wesam Fawzi who said “The quality of life is built on the quality of your decisions”. We are our decisions, Professor Salam Al Shereida said. May your choices reflect your hopes, not fears, in Nelson Mandela’s unforgettable words of inspiration!

3. REWARD PHILOSOPHY: We are in a country where the entitlement mentality is profound and scary. But you must not mix this with reward philosophy. Reward is based on internal relativities, commitment and loyalty to the institution. One of our weak points has been the lack of appropriate reward for loyal, hard-working, patriotic and highly resourceful men and women. But given your pedigree, this should be a thing of the past. Not everyone can be in office (but) we must find a way of boosting and keeping the rank of progressives by running an all-inclusive administration (that would make) everyone to have a sense of belonging. Note that recognition is not a scarce resource; you cannot use it up or run out of it, according to Susan Heathfield. Kindly also note that many people work for money but go the extra mile for recognition, praise and reward, in the words of Dale Carnegie. As Robert Mcnamara noted, brains, like hearts, go where they are appreciated.
4. LESS IS MORE: “Less is more” is about efficiency and optimum yield and value. It is the concept of minimalism popularised by the famous German-American architect, Ludwig Van de Rohe. It is the value of simplicity and that, by having less, you can actually create a life of more. In applying this philosophy in governance, many have spoken of a smart/lean government that guarantees efficiency: Government of quality and not quantity. I know some will argue whether this is possible under our present political dispensation; I believe it is possible. One of the things that should define your government is to try things not because they are popular but because they are ideal and sustainable. We should restructure the system. The dead weight is immense and unsustainable. We should shed weight, else we perish in illusion. There is no gain without pain! If the government is lean, resulting in a healthy and wealthy country, we all are gainers.
5. NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE PROBLEM: In 2015, one of the “mistakes” was to underestimate the rot left behind by the defeated government of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Avoid this! Go to Aso villa with the mindset that all is not well in the polity. And, of course, arm yourself with the notion that the anthem of corruption is unchanged despite hard efforts. Like Robert H. Schuller said, never underestimate your problem or the ability to deal with it.
6. THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX: Modern times demand this, especially in the face of scarce resources and global competition. You need to explore ideas that are creative and unusual and are not limited or controlled by rules or traditions. Results posted in the last 8 years have indicated that we need to think differently, be unconventional and see things from a new perspective, especially in addressing the three cardinal points of the (Muhammadu Buhari) administration. The beginning of greatness is to be different and the beginning of failure is to be the same, according to Roy Whittier.

7 LOW HANGING FRUITS: These are easy-to-accomplish tasks or easy-to-solve problems in a particular situation. For Nigeria, job opportunities rank high. Anything that can bring down the embarrassing unemployment figures in the country within the shortest possible time and halt the growing restiveness of the youths should be explored. Live up to your promise to make youths believe they can work with you and that they have a future in Nigeria. Of course, the stress induced by the mismanagement of the CBN’s money-change policy and the subsidy quagmire demand your immediate attention in office. However, remember that the higher hanging fruits are typically riper and more nutritious.

8. PROTECT THE WEAK: “Defend the weak, protect both young and old, never desert your friends; give justice to all, be fearless in battle and always be ready to defend the right” – The Law of Badger Lords, Brian Jacques. Defending and protecting the weak is self-preservation. It is simply logical. One day, you and I might become weak and can expect others to help us do the same we did to them or to others. Take a great number of people out of poverty. Whilst providing a suitable environment for the strong to get stronger, the weak and poor should also be strengthened. Do the strong have the obligation to help the weak? They do! Remember the metaphor, “EAT THE RICH!”
9. LEAVE A LEGACY: You already made it clear at Abeokuta when you said “I don’t want to be forgotten. Give me the Presidency. It is my turn” This implicitly means you will like to live and be remembered. Leaving a legacy means giving something that will be valued and treasured by those who survive after your passing. The one legacy that comes to mind is leaving the situation better than you met it: A more united, peaceful and secured nation (and) an industrialised and sustainable nation! But it takes hard work!
10. REBUILD PATRIOTISM: Can the average Nigerian die for his country today? Patriotism is the feeling of love, devotion and sense of attachment to one’s country. Over the years, love for the Nigerian flag or passport has waned. Many Nigerians have lost their patriotic zeal and spirit for one reason or the other. Apart from a strong and healthy economy, safety and security, inspirational leadership is key to sustaining the spirit of patriotism, especially among the youths. The Nigerian Orientation Agency should be restructured and empowered to power an advocacy strategy that can make Nigerians want to live, work and die for their country if need be. Leadership by example should be the watchword. We need leaders who will inspire through their lifestyle. We all have to make the necessary sacrifice to achieve this just as Bob Riley noted when he said “I have long believed that sacrifice is the pinnacle of patriotism”. Oscar Wilde also wrote: “Show me the heroes that the youth of your country look up to and I will tell you the future of the country” Patriotism is a thing of the heart. A man is a patriot if his heart beats true to his country, according to Charles E. Jefferson”.

How many of the inspirational ideas espoused above by Akintunde has Tinubu imbibed in his short spell in power? If morning shows the day, as the elders say, what has Tinubu’s first two months in office demonstrated to Nigerians? Perhaps, it is too early to make definitive statements about Tinubu and his fledgling administration. He is even yet to have a full cabinet as it were. I recommend the 10 points above to anyone who can get them to Tinubu and or his kitchen cabinet. I am sure you know that a new set of cabals has since replaced the Buhari cabals who are now out there in the cold. Nature abhors a vacuum. Every rule – be it monarchical, absolutist, theocratic, dictatorial, proletariat, representative or democratic – is of a few over the majority. As one cabal expires and exits, another quickly emerges and takes its place. True, then, are the words of Rousseau that “Man is born free (but) everywhere he is in chains”

Rest on, Prof. Lai Oso

Our paths first crossed when I was Chairman of the Editorial Board of PUNCH newspapers and he had come for his sabbaticals. Unassuming, quiet and hard-working, the Board members learnt a lot from him, especially those of us who did not read Journalism or Mass Communication as first degree. He, too, must have been enriched by the practical aspect of the job that we exposed him to. After he returned to his post as the Head, Department of Mass Communication, Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta, I had cause to barge in on him one day seeking admission into the HND class for a friend. He was presiding at a meeting when I sent in my call card through his secretary; he promptly came out of the meeting to attend to us. “Consider it done”, he told me, and that was it. For the two years that my friend spent in that school, Lai Oso treated her – and I each time I visited – like royalty. Eternal rest, grant him, O Lord, and the family the strength and fortitude to bear this irreparable loss!

*Former Editor of PUNCH newspapers, Chairman of its Editorial Board and Deputy Editor-in-chief, BOLAWOLE was also the Managing Director/ Editor-in-chief of THE WESTERNER newsmagazine. He writes the ON THE LORD’S DAY column in the Sunday Tribune and TREASURES column in New Telegraph newspaper on Wednesdays. He is also a public affairs analyst on radio and television.

MaTaZ ArIsInG

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By Farooq A. Kperogi

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To all you wide-eyed sadists, masochists, and sadomasochists who preached that subsidy is a horrible evil that must be gotten rid of, the results are trickling in. IMF-World Bank’s dream country is materializing in Nigeria. Congratulations!

IMF’s Neoliberal Sadomasochistic Paradise is Finally in Nigeria
By Farooq A. Kperogi
Twitter: @farooqkperogi

It used to be that, like all normal human beings, ordinary Nigerians chafed at policies that choked and squeezed the life out of them, and leaders feared for and strategized over the anticipated forceful pushback of citizens in response to anti-people policies. That dynamic has died in the last eight years.

Sadomasochism, that is, pleasure in inflicting pain on others and on oneself is the new cool currency in Nigeria. Leaders are unashamed sadists (i.e., people who derive contentment from seeing others writhe in pain) and the followers are unthinking, self-immolating masochists (i.e., they obtain joy from the suffering inflicted on them by leaders, which is encapsulated in the current sterile canard that “it gets worse before it gets better,” which I’ve heard government officials utter in defense of boneheaded policies since the 1980s).

There is nowhere in the world where the destructive forces of sadism and masochism reinforce each and stroke each other’s passions with as much harmony as in today’s Nigeria. To demonize subsidies for the poor (while turning a blind eye to the extortionate subsidies for the rich) has now become intellectually and politically fashionable. It’s irrelevant that it’s wholly senseless, impoverished, illogical, and destructive. What matters is that it’s trendy because it has been repeated by IMF/World Bank-groomed opinion leaders in Nigeria.

I’ve seen otherwise intelligent people regurgitate with pride the utterly contemptible wish-wash about subsidies being bad for the poor. It’s now like an unquestioned, ill-digested religious dogma. The unjustified pride people take in repeating this stupidity flows from the faith they have invested in the thoughts, perspectives, and opinions of the thought leaders that they respect. But these thought leaders are paid poodles of the World Bank and the IMF.

These racist, neo-imperialist institutions have had tough luck everywhere in the developing world encouraging leaders to embark on programs of mass pauperization of everyday folks. Countries like Kazakhstan, Ecuador, Bolivia, Indonesia, and Brazil have backtracked and re-instituted subsidies that the IMF had forced them to remove because of the deleterious effects of the removal of subsidies on the poor.

The Structural Adjustments Programs (SAPs) that they force-fed countries in the 1980s and early 1990s (removal of subsidies, devaluation of local currencies, mass retrenchment, etc.) led to mass deaths and violent pushbacks, which caused them to pull back temporarily.

They went back to the drawing room and restrategized. They realized that they can more easily hypnotize people into swallowing their deathly pills if they invest in recruiting opinion leaders who are not directly associated with the daily grind of governance—or who have cultivated some sort of reputational capital strong enough to sway a large swath of people.

That was where people like Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, Peter Obi, religious leaders with mass appeal, the institutional mass media, and others came in. In the last eight years, they collectively launched studied, systematic, sustained, and single-minded demonization campaigns against “subsidies.” They were unchallenged because they were strategically stealthy and undetected.

The result is that for the first time in Nigeria’s history, removal of fuel subsidies not only provoked no hostile response, it was actually met with enthusiastic approval from even people who would be deeply consumed by it. For the first time in Nigeria’s history, every presidential candidate, except Omoyele Sowore, bragged about removing fuel subsidies, and their audiences rejoiced and acclaimed them as visionary and brave. This is unprecedented mass hypnotism.

Now there is no credible opposition to the destructive neoliberal orthodoxy that suffocates the masses of our people. Instead, people are falling over each other to be seen to be affirming the smoldering of our people. I read a supposedly critical press statement from the PDP the other day, which said President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s only achievement has been the removal of subsidies!

One Professor Chris Nwokobia who was a member of the Labour Party/Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Council lamented to Arise TV on June 29 that “Tinubu is copying Peter Obi’s planned policies, programmes.” Although it’s delusional to say Tinubu has stolen from Obi’s programs (because Obi didn’t even have a manifesto until the last few weeks of the election) Nwokobia is right that Tinubu is ruling as Obi would have ruled.

Obi is an ideologue of the Washington Consensus, a mole of the IMF and the World Bank in Nigeria. He is pro-market and anti-people. As a governor, he “saved” money and starved people. He fired workers for demanding a living minimum wage, caused needless deaths in hospitals when he ignored a one-year-plus doctors’ strike, and so on.

Plus, on the campaign trail, he popularized a false, illogical dichotomy between “consumption” and “production” where he conceptualized “consumption” to mean the people (read: subsidies for ordinary folks) and production to mean the market (read: profits for domestic and multinational corporations). He was for production and not consumption. That’s a fraudulent World Bank/IMF duality. There won’t be production without consumption, as there won’t be consumption without production.

That was why the Western financial press supported him. Although Atiku Abubakar vowed to sell everything and take away subsidies, the World Bank didn’t trust his capacity to resist pressure, particularly because he is a northerner whose people would be the most hurt by the World Bank’s death pills.

They also thought Tinubu might be too populist to implement their agenda. Now they’re pleasantly surprised that he’s compliant to their prescriptions of death for the masses of our people. That’s why they’re praising him to the skies in their media. International praises are intoxicating for low-self-esteemed, legitimacy-challenged Third World leaders.

Tinubu thinks he needs the support of the World Bank, the IMF, and other racist Western financial institutions to shore up his legitimacy. He doesn’t understand that the most important legitimacy he can have is the happiness of the people he governs.

Of course, the labor movement is dead. Its partisan association with Peter Obi, the most right-wing, anti-labor presidential candidate Nigeria has ever had, has denuded it of the last vestige of credibility it had.

We now have full-blown SAP in new robes. The SAP that Nigerians rejected with their blood because it exterminated their people is now being embraced. There is even opposition to any sort of intervention to cushion the noxiousness of fuel subsidy removal.

Historied journalist Dan Agbese was apoplectic the other day because President Tinubu had chosen to dilute, through temporary cash transfers, the potency of the toxic cocktail of IMF/World pills he has accepted for Nigerians.

“His decision came as a huge and disturbing shock to those of us who enthusiastically applauded his courage to bite the bullet by letting fuel subsidy become instant history from May 29 when he assumed office,” Agbese wrote in his column in the Daily Trust. “It was a courageous decision that blocked a major leakage in the national economy…. Sadly, he appears to have wilted in the heat of the groaning and given in to the persuasive do-gooders who care less for the poor but more for their pocket.”

That makes zero sense even with the wildest stretch of logic. But Agbese is basically saying that in this new IMF-birthed neoliberal nirvana, even a little compassion is haram. Let the people smolder. Let their bloom wither. Let them squirm in anguish. Let them die. That’s what will “save” them.

Much of Nigeria has now regressed to the stone age. Basic, taken-for-granted luxuries that had been democratized are now once again the preserve of an exclusive, privileged few. The middle class is being wiped out. The streets are empty, bleak, barren, and desolate. Only the rich can afford to drive cars, eat, and exult.

The Daily Trust of July 21 reported that “Millions of private and commercial vehicle owners have parked [their cars] at home even as traders and civil servants who could not afford high fares remained indoors with many of them saying they were waiting for a miracle to happen.”

That’s the neoliberal paradise the World Bank wants non-Western people to live in and that its witting and unwitting ideologues in Nigeria want you to accept as natural and commonsense.

There won’t be miracles. Money saved from the removal of subsidies is unlikely to be used for the benefit of the people. It will be stolen and divided among some of the same people who have relentlessly evangelized the gospel of the badness of subsidies. I hope I am wrong because that would make me happy.

But President Tinubu had pointed out that he had been asked to take his own “share” of the windfall from subsidy removal but that he spurned the offer. Who asked him to take his “share”? That clearly indicates that in the past, when subsidies were removed, people in power shared the proceeds from it but told people subsidies had to be removed because Nigeria was “broke.” When they say Nigeria is broke, they mean there isn’t enough to fund the pleasures and bottomless greed of the elites.

Although the philosophy of “compassion is haram” is now hegemonic in Nigeria, hegemony is always in a state of negotiation and renegotiation because people’s lived experiences always cause them to question assumptions that they had unquestioningly accepted. I hope we don’t get to a point where the poor have nothing left to eat but the rich.

MaTaZ ArIsInG

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