By Femi Kusa
How well prepared are we for six bone-breaking battles in Nigeria’s socio-economy between president Bola TINUBU and business MAFIAS who are sucking the country and us dry?
We said in 2015 and 2019 that we wanted change. But that change never came as we expected because president Mohammadu Buhari either didn’t know what change was all about or he was too weak or afraid to wage wars in the economy against MAFIAS that were strangulating the country.
That was why many Nigerans were thrilled that president Bola Ahmed TINUBU declared six bone-breaking “wars” in his inaugural speech on 29th May 2023. They saw him as a brave man who knew his way around the economy and who will not give up any battle until, to quote Williams Shakespeare, ” The hurly burly is over, (and) the battle is won and lost”. Soon, I will outline the “wars”, president Tinubu has declared on troublesome MAFIAS in the economy.
I believe the “friendly fires” will be temporary, like the pains of a woman in labour in the labour room and that the end of each battle, like the arrival of a new baby, a bundle of miracle and joy, will bring beautiful, broad smiles on our faces.
Meanwhile, we will have to guard our health, because tearing away from the past, like tearing away from an attachment, is not an easy experience. How well we would survive it all will depend on our capacities for adaptation to changing and adverse situations.
In nature, all animals adapt to changing environments. We all know the chamelion does this well. The bat cannot fly during the day because sunlight is too bright for its eyes. So, it adapts to night life. I study the snails in the snail cage in my small house garden. When the sun is scorching, they either cover themselves with a protective secretion which calcifies, bouncing back the hot rays, or burrow into the soil to hibernate until weather conditions become more favourable.
If I wet their habitation or rain falls upon it, they come out of their hiding places and carry on with their lives. Human beings have a higher capacity for adaptation and, worldwide, Nigerians have become well known as one of the most adaptive humans on our earth. Do we not leave a country well bathed in tropical sunshine for terribly cold countries and, nevertheless, adroitly and beautifully survive?
Before I come to the outlines, I wish to advise that all of us, including the president himself, pay more than passing attention to our health. Bitterness over the changing environment in which we live will not solve our problems. It may give us headaches, sleepless nights, hypertension, heart and blood vessel diseases, stroke, heart failure, fear, anxiety and even depression.
Do not be suprised if sudden deaths at this time are related to pathological hatred for the man in the driver’s seat, that is the president and whatever are the achievements in the economy he is making. When you hear some people speak, you easily recognise that they have not woken from the slumber of the elections and do not realise or believe we have a new president.
President Tinubu will be under severe work pressure . Nerve wracking will be the several meetings he will have to hold in the first hundred days of his Administration to properly establish the vision and to guard the sail. The soup plate receives the soup in its bowel, not on its buttocks, a Yoruba addage says. This will make him need brain and nerve food supplements. He will need to avoid heavy meals because they will drain more blood to the stomach and intestine and leave less for the brain, the eyes, the ears and the nerves which will be under severe pressure at this time. I do not know what his diet is like. He and his chef may wish to advise themselves of what astronauts eat in space, where no cooking is done , and they return to the earth often fresher and as energetic as they left it.
MAFIA WARS
I anticipate six mafia wars in the economy.
1)The subsidy mafia may exploit temporary hardships to forment trouble that will get the President off its back, and return the nation to subsidy days. Already, the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) has brought a bird out of its pocket. Time will tell on which side it stands. The President has explained his own vision. What is the NLC vision for generating income to service national debts, raise salaries and wages, while economic development is simultaneously funded?
Or is it merely rabble rousing, playing to the gallery? Is the NLC unaware of the Petroleum Industry Act ( PIA) which forbids subsidy? Where was the NLC when former President Mohammadu Buhari was signing the Petroleum Industry Bill ( PIB) into law? Why is it now crying wolf when the law is running its course? Does the NLC want President Tinubu to break the law? Is the NLC unaware that the NNPC over imports refined petrol and that the excess is exported by marketers to West African countries for humongous profit, subsidising petrol in these countries at the expense of Nigerians?
What the NLC should do is give us its own counter plan for funding the economy. We should examine both and decide on which is better. In a general nationwide strike, many persons the NLC claims to be defending may die because there may be no doctors in hospitals. There may be no foodstuff in the market. The banks may close, and there would be a worse cash squeeze than Emefiele’s cash squeeze. There may be no money in the pockets of people who live by the daily income. Robberies may erupt. These and more, are definitely not anything near what the NLC thinks are what we like or want?
Former president Obasanjo who had not left any president who succeeded him in peace must be lurking around in the shadows for a pound of President Tinubu’s flesh. Tinubu has outclassed Obasanjo as a politician on no fewer than three serious occasions. Obasanjo is unlikely to give up another fight with him. To the mafia, human blood is like water and human life like chicken life when it comes to protecting their interest, irrespective of whether the members are top dignitaries in the Church or in the Mosque.
….to be continued…
