It would not be baseless or without justification if one makes the assertion
that there is nobody in Nigeria that did not experience Tinubumania during the presidential campaign period in the last quarter of last year and first quarter of this year.
That is because marketing of Tinubu’s candidacy was so intense with a sort of in-your-face type of aggression that was bolstered and galvanized by the ‘Emi Lo Kan’ mantra which became a national sing song of sorts or Tinubumania.
It is in a similar manner that Tinubumania dominated the political atmosphere,that literally everyone in Nigeria is currently feeling the impact of Tinubunomics,since president Bola Ahmed Tinubu was handed the reins of political leadership of our great country on 29 May,having won the 2023 presidential contest.
Without any shred of doubt whatsoever, Tinubunomics is a bug that has bitten practically everyone in Nigeria.
And it has done so in less than one month of president Tinubu being at the helm of affairs in the management of our beloved country,Nigeria.
Off course bugs vary and they have different types of effect on humans.
There are people who are bitten by education bug.That means they passionately pursue the vision or dream of being educated perhaps to the highest level which is obtaining a doctoral degree.
There are also those who get bitten by the type of bug that can result in feverish conditions.
Take mosquito bites for instance.
Victims can become sick and even die from malaria infection which is a direct consequence of a bite from the mosquito bug.
In the case of Tinubunomics,it is a bug that has obviously created some excitement and distress alike amongst a broad spectrum of people in Nigerian society.
For those that had been bilking our country of billions of dollars through petrol subsidy and bleeding our treasury of billions of dollars through multiple exchange rates of the naira,Tinubunomics has had a negative effect .
But to the poor masses that the end of petrol subsidy regime would enable government apply the billlions of dollars that would have gone down the drain pipe via Premium Motor Spirit,PMS subsidy; they are happy because government can apply the erstwhile petrol subsidy funds in the provision of health care facilities , roads and schools infrastructure ,as well as grant loans to indigent students in higher educational institutions that could have dropped out of universities, polytechnics and mono-technics, owing to incapacity to pay school fees.
Clearly,Tinubunomics is a type of elixir or uhuru for the category of Nigerians referenced above, it is also the end of a binge for the beneficiaries of petrol subsidy.
And the described foregoing realities are the reason that the removal of subsidy on petrol which is a defining factor in Tinubunomics has for instance created a huge buzz nationwide since petrol affects literally all aspects of life in Nigeria.
Of course ,the youth demographics is affected positively by Tinubunomics via the signing into law of the student loan policy that would help in easing the burden of some indigent students who had not been able to afford school fees which had been a compelling factor for them to drop out.
To the credit of Tinubunomics,going forward,the loss of brainy students imbued with high intellect, otherwise known as ‘hot brains’ to the underworld,which is not different from the brain drain that we often complain about when our professionals migrate to other climes in search of better life opportunities,would no longer happen because every Nigerian would have the opportunity to acquire education with loan from government.
In fact,if we get every Nigerian interested in acquiring higher education into schools via the newly enacted law authorizing loan for the indigent to pursue higher education ,our country would produce enough skilled human capital for retention to work at home to help the economy grow and there would alao be a large number still available for deployment into the diaspora to boost foreign remittances into our economy. So instead of complaining about brain, education loan would enable more Nigerians acquire education so that there would be sufficient educated people to help grow the local economy while the rest could also work abroad and facilitate foreign remittances into our country.
China is the fastest growing economy in the world today because it has the largest collection or pool of talents per square meter than any other country in the world. That is why the country is on the cutting edge of technology.
To phantom the benefits of having a huge pool of skilled Human capital resources to execute projects speedily, effectively ,and efficiently, as a local reference point, readers should consider the speed with which China built the Lekki Deep sea port in lagos in a record time by the Chinese.
In fact , it is China’s huge collection of skilled manpower through massive education of the populace that has made Asian giant the foremost manufacturing hub of the world.
As l have noted in multiple interventions promoting student loan as the pathway to a greater future for Nigeria, l always cited the case of Indians at a point in time,being CEOs/CTOs of the first ten(10) Fortunate 500 companies in the world owing to Indian government’s policy of prioritizing education.
So the new higher education loan driven by Tinubunomics would help ensure that nobody is left behind,education-wise in Nigeria and by virtue of having the largest population in Africa, our country can become the biggest manufacturing hub on the continent if we develop the required skilled manpower in the manner that China and Indian-the largest and second largest populations in the world are major manufacturing and export hubs to the world.
Although the same Tinubunomics has created excitement, it has also elicited some anxiety and triggered a feeling of misery amongst the working class whom the removal of petrol subsidy has impacted negatively.
That is because the cost of transportation and in deed all life essentials have spiked dramatically resulting in hardships on the masses in the short term.
Being not unmindful of the consequences of petrol subsidy removal on the masses ,the architects of Tinubunomics have been assiduously working round the clock to provide succor or buffer for the vulnerable or the more exposed to the inflationary consequences of petrol subsidy removal implementation.
To that extent,we know that the purveyors of Tinubunomics have been contemplating introducing measures such as salary increase for workers to cushion the harsh effects.
Obviously Tinubunomics doctrine demands a paradigm shift in the ways and manner policies evolve and get implemented, so it would no longer be business as usual in Nigeria .
That is perhaps why it is taking a little while for solutions to the challenges that the paradigm shift has thrown up to be hashed out.
As part of the multiple palliative measures being considered,one hundred percent (100%) wage increase is a policy direction that is being touted.
And it is a policy that l whole heartedly support. It’s attractiveness to me is the fact that it is the opposite of the previous gambits of deploying buses for workers through the Nigeria Labor Congress,NLC or warehousing the funds from the so called savings and putting it in a common ‘Pot’ such as SURE- P from where some appointed or ‘anointed’ individuals would, in the guise of administering the funds for public good, be lining their private pockets with the common wealth of Nigerian masses.
Arising from the sordid past experience of abuse of public funds by public officials as reflected by what happened to public intervention funds like Petroleum Trust Fund,PTF, Oil Mineral Producing Development Commission, OPADEC ,Niger Delta Development Commission,NNDC ,it is a no brainer to figure out that the pooling together of the so called funds to be saved from the current petrol subsidy removal exercise for management on behalf of the public,would eventually end up literally becoming another black hole/drain pipe in the nation’s treasury which PMS subsidy payment had been and which it’s removal is aimed at eliminating.
Why plug one hole and puncture another and end up retaining the drain in another form through different hole?
So why don’t government give the funds directly to workers via 100% salary increase in the first instance. At least that way, they can decide by themselves what their priorities are and apply the funds accordingly. Of course there are valid fears of inflation arising from salary increase for public servants.
How can we forget how Udoji award bankrupted Nigeria in 1973?
The largesse of doubling public servants salaries named after the man who headed committee, justice Jerome Udoji is actually the genesis of Nigeria’s profligacy.
But inflation is a smaller monster which can be tamed with targeted monetary policies that would moderate its effect.
In effect establishing a pool of funds from where subsidy removal savings would be disbursed to the masses amounts to setting up a parallel government to be run by the same Nigerians with the same mentality (not saints from heaven) who would create the type of choke holds that similar institutions have created in the past and some of which have threatened and continues threatening to asphyxiate our beloved country.
Of course palliatives in the form of mass transit buses,ferries or other modes of transportation and logistics are currently urgently highly needed. But the best approach is for the mass transit facilities to be provided by the private sector that may be offered loans to fund the initiative, simply because government has no business in business.
Without any doubt,pooling funds together for disbursement to ameliorate the hardship on the masses would not be different from the petrol subsidy regime which we have been trying to wean ourselves-off of in the past several decades.
Even going as far back as to the dark days of military rule under the watch of Generals Mohammadu Buhari,Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha.
Incidentally,then Gen. Mohammadu Buhari,who later metamorphosed into president Buhari (2015-2023) was the chairman of Petroleum Trust Fund, PTF – a behemoth created out of petrol subsidy reduction by Gen. Abacha. The record of that intervention behemoth which became a metaphor for corruption of the highest order is still fresh in the memory of most Nigerians.
At this juncture,it is germane to elaborate further on Tinubunomics which is a combination of the multiple policies that have been introduced by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in less than one month of being at the helm of affairs of our country.
In fact it is a governance philosophy which is undergirded by the principle of doing things differently and it is a leadership phenomenon that has had a spectacular effect on Nigeria and Nigerians with reverberations across the world.
The impact of President Tinubu taking charge in Aso Rock Villa range from the stunning decisions ending the roughly five (5) decades old petrol subsidy regime that has been consuming precious financial resources of our country akin to money being thrown down the drain instead of being used for interventions in more productive and critical areas such as education, healthcare,roads ,ports; to the signing into law of a new electricity act that would make generation and distribution of electricity energy open to all willing and able investors.
It is a policy that would eventually lead to the much sought industrialization of Nigeria which is a development aspiration that perennial epileptic power supply had been inhibiting.
Tinubunomics has also led to the signing into law of the bill ,(as stated earlier) that would facilitate the offer of loans to indigent students in higher institutions of learning and which would lead to the expansion of the pool of talents in our country because no longer would anyone willing to obtain higher education be left out of the education loop owing to lack of financial capacity as opposed to lack academic ability.
That is because as a result of the policy of granting indigent students loan,the potential Albert Einsteins (the geniuses) that had become street urchins ,kidnappers,motor park touts,rapists,prostitutes and religious insurgents wreaking havoc on children,women and men in our country because they dropped out of school due to lack of funds to pay their school fees by their parents who are poor would join the talent pool and enhance the quality of the workforce in our country and those that migrate abroad to work.
Thanks to Tinubunomics engendered policies,if they are pursued to their logical conclusions and hopefully they would because president Tinubu appears to be determined to make a difference in political leadership because he has stated unequivocally that he is prepared for it : our country would no longer allow such great talents to be wasted, because with the access to higher education when the education for the indigent law is operationalized ,all Nigerians would have the opportunity to become the genuses that God had created them to be,but which poverty had been denying some of them from becoming.
An additional aspect of the Tinubunomics reform initiative and revolution is the signing of the freedom of data bill assented to by president Tinubu. It is also bound to energize the information technology and digital sector of the Nigerian economy that had remained latent with potentials. With the implementation of the new law, that largely untapped sector of our economy that holds humongous opportunities for our army of youths would be unleashed such that it would become a higher contributor to the Gross Domestic Product,GDP of the nation’s economy.
Already the Tinubunomics triggered initiative is bringing to the table in Nigeria, interest by major players in information and communication technology stretching to the the spheres of Artificial Intelligence,Al which is currently making waves in all areas of human endeavors in and around the industrially developed world.
And as if in response to the introduction of the data law,Mr Bill Gates,the founder of Microsoft and modern day father of computing and information technology, has just visited Nigeria again to reaffirm his validation of the potentials of Nigerian youths to becoming a powerful factor in the world of information technology as he had posited during his first visit in 2018.
Another significant effect of Tinubunomics is the triggering of the end of multiple naira /foreign exchange rates regime that had kept Foreign Exchange,FX in the hands of rent seekers who buy at reduced price from the Central Bank of Nigeria ,CBN only to resell to actual industrialists that need it at sometimes up to 50% percent margin.
The process known as arbitrage has been wrecking havoc on our economy by draining our treasury of hard earned FX that should have been applied in the productive sector of the economy such as provision of health care, education, housing and other essential infrastructure that would serve the best interest of the masses.
But owing to a policy of multiple exchange rates of the naira,the rent seekers who are the powerful and privileged persons in the corridors of political power have been fleecing our economy by doing nothing but round tripping.
It is an unconscionable activity and an unsustainable policy that a former CBN governor and ex-Emir of Kano,Sanusi Lamido Sanusi has been decrying.
Arising from that wrong headed policy (now scrapped in the wake of Tinubunomics) instead of Nigeria being a productive economy, it has been a high consumption one.
Following the end of the parasitic multiple naira exchange rate that is aimed at ending arbitrage,hopefully industries that fled from our country owing to lack of FX to procure needed materials to produce goods would return with the associated benefits of employment creation and payment of tax to government.
Clearly,the policy reforms in the monetary and financial services system would definitely release the bureaucratic chokehold on the growth of the economy that has been inhibiting the flourishing of our country and instead earned her the unenviable reputation of being the poverty capital of the world.
And it is being envisaged that the collective positive impact of the multiplicity of the aforementioned policy reforms in the economy would be similar, in particular to the revolution that happened in the telecommunications space after it was opened up to private investors under the watch of ex president Olusegun Obasanjo, 1999-2007.
It may be recalled that it is the liberalization/privatization policy birthed and nurtured under the watch of ex president Olusegun Obasanjo, OBJ (1999-2007) that triggered the founding of GLO-an indigenous telecommunications services provider owned by Chief Mike Adenuga ,and international conglomerates-MTN,Airtel and 9Mobile as well as other micro telecommunications services providers like Smile telecom owned by another indigenous entrepreneur, Ernest Obijiesi of NestOil.
It is trite to state that it is as a result of the liberalization of telecoms sector that it is today a major contributor to the GDP and Gross National Product,GNP of our country through provision of employment for the hitherto unemployed and payment of taxes.
Generally,the impact of Tinubunomics which are legion are not only being driven by assent to bills into acts of law as evidenced by the significant number of acts of parliament that president Tinubu has appended his signature such as the electricity act 2023 and access to higher education act as well as the the freedom of data bill ,it is also being done by sublime measures such as the spoken policy directions components of the new administration’s Tinubunomics doctrine.
These are reflected by the current monetary policy directions of the collapse into one the hitherto multiple naira exchange rates which was dogged with corruption since the ascendancy of Tinubunomics angels or for lack of a better nomenclature,ambassadors.
They are currently ten(10) in number, excluding the Chief of Staff to the president,CoS Hon.Femi Gbajabiamila and Secretary to the Federal Government of Nigeria,SFGN Senator George Akume,not forgetting vice president Kashim Shettima and Deputy Chief of Staff, lbrahim Hassan Hadeija.
All of the above catalogued policy initiatives, (some of which are already being operationalized) and being driven by aforementioned personalities are bringing about sweeping changes which are sounding like swan songs to both local and international investors as well as partner countries.
It is the totality of the above measures so far taken under President Tinubu’s watch that l have branded Tinubunomics.
As evidence of the reverberating impart of Tinubunomics across Nigeria and indeed the world, an international validation was recently given during a visit to vice President kashim Shettima in Aso Rock Villa, by British High Commissioner,Mr Richard Montgomery who acknowledged and commended President Tinubu’s administration for introducing positive policies such as petrol subsidy removal and unification of the multiple exchange rates of the naira.
I am being very effusive about the policy decisions so far made by President Tinubu because they are in tandem with what l have been advocating in numerous media Interventions in nearly three (3) decades of my engagement of public intellectualism.
And one of the key factors for the enthusiasm in local and international investors community about the gale of reforms being unfurled by the new administration is that somehow,Tinubunomics equates the I.M. F type of reform conditionalities without the loan.
To put the unfolding sociopolitical and economic situation in context,it is necessary that a comparison is made between the reforms that president Tinubu has introduced and the demands usually made by the International Monetary Funds,I.M.F when countries seek bail out funds from the Breton woods institutions including the world bank.
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Is it not amazing that,(at least for now)Nigeria is not seeking an I.M.F loan,yet it is imposing fiscal discipline on itself as if it is seeking for a loan?
The recent experience of our neighboring country Ghana that just received three billion dollars ($3b) from the I.M.F based on agreement on some economic policies reforms in Ghana is instructive.
We are reminded by Ghanaian experience of how the imposition of policies as pre-conditions for financial bailout can be demoralizing and dehumanizing.
As some of us may be aware,the I.M.F loan to Ghana is supported by a new three-year arrangement under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) of about US$3 billion with stiff conditionalities which are like bitter pills that Ghana must swallow in order to survive the financial headwinds that it is facing.
Although the loan would induce hardship for Ghanaians ,it is deemed as necessary by the government of President Nana Dankwa Akufo-Ado as it is envisioned as a saving grace to our neighbor in west Africa that recently fell into hard times and which has had a contagion effect on the balance sheets of Nigerian banks operating in that country that had to take some ‘hair cuts’ as the losses of their subsidiaries negatively have affected their over all performance at home in Nigeria.
As it may be recalled,Nigeria had also suffered the dilemma of financial insolvency in the mid 1980s during the regime of Gen Ibrahim Babangida,IBB (1985-1993) similar to the situation currently being faced by Ghana.
That was what prompted the country to seek a bailout loan from the l.M.F and some reforms were demanded as pre conditions for granting the loan.
Some of the conditionalities were very stringent and they were such that the nation balked at taking the loan facility.
New York Times reporter , Edward A. Gargan, in his article titled : “ Nigerian Leader Wary On I.M.F Loan” published on October 8, 1985, which is nearly 38 years ago so stated the following about Nigeria and the I.M.F loan:
“As a condition for granting the loan,the I.M.F. has called for Nigeria to devalue its currency, the naira, and end the practice of subsidizing petroleum products for consumers. At the official rate of exchange, the naira is equivalent to $1.08, but on the black market here in Lagos money changers are selling nairas for as much as four to the dollar.
“Smuggling Is Rampant.
The tremendous disparity between the official and unofficial exchange rate has led to rampant smuggling and has sharply curtailed Nigeria’s ability to sell manufactured goods abroad”, he noted.
“Moreover, gasoline in Nigeria remains the cheapest in Africa – less than $1 a gallon at the official rate and about 25 cents a gallon at black market rates. Today, General Babangida refused to say whether oil subsidies would be lifted, and virtually ruled out any sharp devaluation of the nation’s currency.”, the reporter concluded.
Is it not stunning that the damning socioeconomic atmosphere currently existing in Nigeria is exactly the situation that was existing nearly four decades ago and for which the l.M.F demanded that Nigerian leaders should make some tough decisions to reform as a critical pre condition for granting her a bailout loan under the watch of military president Gen. lbrahim Babangida?
Clearly, it is a crying shame that the absurd situation had persisted for several decades until president Tinubu summoned the courage to end petrol subsidy on 29 May?
Prior to President Tinubu’s bold action,none of Nigeria’s leaders had been able to figuratively swallow the bitter pills of petrol subsidy removal in order for the nation to regain its compromised financial health.
The roll call of Nigerian military heads of state and presidents that could not muster the courage remove petrol subsidy go all the way from the regime of Gen.Mohammadu Buhari, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida ,IBB to Gen. Sani Abacha.
It is striking that it is the seemingly insurmountable task that could have helped to leap-frog Nigerian economy from a consumption to a production centric one several decades ago,that president Tinubu carried out with his unscripted pronouncement: “petrol subsidy has ended” in his inaugural day speech on 29 May thus heralding the removal of petrol subsidy.
In tune with the massive reform agenda of Tinubunomics,the implementation of the policy of unifying the multiple naira exchange rates into one has also subsequently happened.Thus the hemorrhaging of our country’s foreign exchange treasury hitherto used in propping up the naira to the selfish benefits of a few individuals in Aso Rock Villa corridors of power has also ended like petrol subsidy.
Arising from the actions referenced above, President Tinubu has literally killed the two werewolf- like monsters sucking the blood of Nigeria which are: payment of petrol subsidy and operation of multiple platforms and rates for exchanging the naira that had been gulping billions of dollars earned from the sale of crude oil and gas.
He has also laid out the framework for industrial takeoff in Nigeria by liberalizing the electricity energy supply sector through the signing into law of electricity act 2023.
Electricity generation and distribution had been on the exclusive list, implying that only the federal government can make investment in that sector.
Going down memory lane,it may be recalled that instead of taking the I.M.F loan in 1985/86 the administration under the leadership of IBB ,after an exhausting public debate about the desirability or otherwise of the loan under the conditionalities and terms proposed by the I.M.F,opted out and settled for a home grown alternative-Structural Adjustment Program ,SAP which is self imposed tough reform policies.
Basically,SAP was about belt tightening by way of plugging all the identified leakages in the economy which had been making it impossible to grow from third to first would like her former peer country at independence, the island nation, Singapore under the iconic leader,Lee Kuan-Yew of blessed memory.
Unfortunately, the implementation of S.A.P was not diligent as it was haphazard and inconsistent hence it failed to achieve its lofty objectives.
Hence,today most of the prevailing challenges that Tinubunomics has taken care of or addressed frontally and aggressively,echo the issues that SAP program 1985/6 ought to have resolved four (4) decades ago. But owing to poor implementation and even after more or less four decades has elapsed ,our economy has remained in the same doldrums that it had been mired and Nigerian masses have been stuck in poverty, even in worse condition than they were in fifty (50) years ago.
Hopefully, the decadent past would change for the better with the actions so far taken by President Tinubu in less than four (4) weeks of holding the reins of presidential power ranging from the appointments of chief of staff to the president, CoS,Femi Gbajabiamila ,deputy chief of staff Ibrahim Hassan Hadeija and Secretary to the Federal Government of Nigerian, SGFN,senator George Akume,all of whom are considered to be round pegs in round holes.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Onyibe, an entrepreneur, public policy analyst, author, democracy advocate, development strategist, alumnus of Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Massachusetts, USA and a former commissioner in Delta state government, sent this piece from Los Angeles, California,USA.
