NACOPPIN NIGERIA 2023
- TINUBUNOMICS & TINUBUGONOMETRICS : IDEOLOGY OF VIOLENCE AND DOMINATION & DESCENT INTO ECONOMIC CATACLYSM AND WAR MONGERING BY NIGERIA 2023
- WHY NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA FAILED TO RESCUE TINUBU IN ABUJA
- MOTION OF MONDAY AUGUST 7, 2023, AT THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TO PEACEFULLY DISMEMBER, DISSOLVE AND DISMANTLE NIGERIA: WHERE IS NIGERIA HEADED?
ByDr. Orefo Nnamdi Onochie </code></pre></li>
I received a phone call from my publisher and he informed me that the cost of a ream of publishing paper had just doubled, because the importers complained that on Monday August 14, 2023, the Naira – US dollar exchange rate at the public parallel market had climbed to N1,000.00 to $1.00 USD. How can Nigeria be crashing downward at this breakneck speed? Even Zimbabwe at it’s worst, did not degenerate at this kind of speed. It is Tinubunomics.
Only 76-days ago, as Bola Ahmed Tinubu took oath of Office, the same rate of exchange of the Naira against the US Dollar was at N720.00 to the US Dollar: it was shameful for Buhari. At our current rate, of economic and inflationary spiral, can we hazard where Nigeria’s economy is headed?
Do we have anyone or institutional prophet who can point a finger and say to the pharaoh of Nigeria, here, this is where this land is headed? Nigeria is in real and deep trouble, because it is headed to a destination of no return, an economic cataclysm! We have numerous economic history and data, in Nigeria that provides proof that once prices go up, they never come back down.
This is Tinubu’s earliest heritage in 76-days for Nigeria: you can bet the government will ask you to have more patience with them and be prepared to sacrifice more, while Godswill Akpabio, Senate President, chosen by Tinubu, is care-freely distributing money into Senators’ bank accounts for “comfortable “ holidays and weekends, N2Million to each of the109 Senators. It was unstoppable descent into economic cataclysm, that led to the invitation, and why Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was called in to meet with Tinubu in Abuja.
It’s been impossible now for anyone to refuse or refute the unwritten agreement between the “North” and Southwest that no one who speaks Igbo should be President of Nigeria, ever. Now they have thrown the country to the marines, they want a person who speaks Igbo, such as Okonjo-Iweala, to come from Washington DC and from under her Nigerian togas, bring out the magic wand that stabilized Goodluck Jonathan until 2015. Where they are now, Okonjo-Iweala, or any body else for that matter can no longer help Nigeria. Now, to Tinubunometrics and adventurism using ECOWAS and the coup in Niamey, Niger Republic!
IDEOLOGY OF VIOLENCE AND DOMINATION
When the ideology was first propounded, it came out as, “grab power and run away with it”, then it was reshaped to “we will provide agbado” for all Nigerians, really meaning BULLION VANS to buy up Nigeria: with a sense that it may be slightly difficult, the ideology was changed to “emi lo kan”. To ensure the permanence of this DOMINATION using ethnic violence, after the Presidential election shock of February 18, 2023, all Igbos in Lagos, or those who resemble or look like Igbos, should not come out to cast a vote on Saturday March 25, 2023.
Still at breakneck speed, Buhari hurriedly handed over Federal power, to Tinubu, and withdrew to Daura and Niamey. In tow came even more, removal of fuel subsidy, Emefiele and the N89 Trillion Naira hide away, petrol per liter price beginning from N350.00 now to N650..00, despite denials, in 14-days the price will increase to N750.00 a la IPMAN, and the Naira exchange rate zooming to N1,200.00 Naira to $1.00 USD before Xmas 2023. Ain’t no stopping Nigeria, anytime soon!
When the coup in Niamey, Niger Republic struck on July 27, 2023, Tinubu had already “grabbed “ the power of ECOWAS Chairman, still thinking he is at the end of the Lagoon, in Badagry, Lagos State, he intoned to the Niger Republic junta, to fold up and hand back power to Bazoum within 7-days or face daunting sanctions: he was not addressing another SOVEREIGN entity, it was like doing same ordering of the now DOMINATED Igbos in Lagos State, and the rest of Nigeria. So, the Niamey junta General, Abdul Thaini, retorted that he would not take orders from an “illegitimate”. The wagons of war and regional trigonometric DOMINATION were already reeling in circles.
Short handed in total analysis of policy options, Northern Nigeria has now risen against the man they installed on May 29, 2023, to lead Nigeria: already decimated by Boko Haram, Bandits, ISWAP and Unknown Islamic Fulaniherdsmen, the North does not want a Yoruba man to bring more violence and war, to the northern borders of Nigeria, with Russia fully ready to exploit the new opening into the Nigerian Sahel, Wagner Mercenaries sighting the gold deposits in Zamfarra, and China insistent on protecting the Refinery Buhari and Bazoum helped them to install in Zinger, further south of Niamey.
Why is Tinubu, and his associates in Aso Rock, not thinking of all these? They are already focusing on 2027, 2031, VP Shettima and disgraced Mallam El Rufai. While the rest of the West are using ECOWAS to fight off Russia, China, Wagner Mercenaries and Islamic Jihadists, spreading downward from Libya, Somalia and Sudan as the latest exploitable terrain in Africa.
When Nigerians expressed disappointment that nearly 70% of the Tinubu appointees around Aso Rock are ethnic Yoruba, hardly had the ideology of DOMINATION become real to the Northerners, as el Rufai and Maryam Shetti were waiting to be set up and disgraced at the doorsteps of the Senate, to be confirmed as Ministers. For el Rufai the battle grounds had grown brown and dusty. He fought Obasanjo from the Atiku flank, took on Atiku from the knuckles of Buhari, and coasted to a new heritage of double Islamic Presidential tickets of Tinubu and Shettima, fully assertive that his own time had come.
Hardly did it strike him that those who use hard paths, get followed by the same token. How could he be at fault, having served the ethnic Yoruba cause so gleefully, though he is a Fulani man, and the Islamic cause so patriotically? Yet the decision had been made to litter him, in order to secure an uncertain future that no one in Nigeria can predict.
El Rufai wants to live and fight another day, so the calculations that he would oust both Shettima and Nuhu Ribadu in 2027, is essentially faulty because his cause is to elevate Islam and shout down all other religions in Nigeria. Those who wish to repeat history, never make it to the riverbank of success. Atiku’s friendship with Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Orji Uzo Kalu, and el Rufai, to fight Obasanjo to the finish, was a dice whose rolling stop could not be predicted, especially by the actors themselves. No one can predict the future. In all these permutations, the woeful economic fortunes of Nigeria in the next quarter, remains the highest drawback, coupled with the embers of ethnic domination, that confronts the Nigerian political entity, and unless a critical turnaround is reached, greater shocks await the general citizenry.
WHY OKONJO-IWEALA FAILED TO RESCUE TINUBU IN ABUJA
The wizardry of fruitful economic principles eluded those who believe that every thing in Nigeria in 2023 can be bought with US Dollars or Naira. Throwing money at every point of policy blockage has not worked, rather it has exacerbated the problems. After buying delegates to become the APC Presidential Candidate, and buying the INEC leaders to “win” the Presidential election, Tinubu discovered on Inauguration Day that policy efficacy cannot be bought with money: common sense is never common, the more your impudence, the farther away you drive it.
To test policy postulations you must be prepared to stand the rigors of public criticism and scrutiny. Once the pronouncement of policies are made, that testing ground is lost forever, and if the policies are deprived of efficacy, social consequences engender restiveness and public disenchantment: little else is left for maneuver, these are the realities that faced Tinubu, in the wake of Okonjo-Iweala’s visit to Aso Villa. Two most critical problems confronted Tinubu at that epoch, run-away inflation, and rising cost of living in Nigeria.
Could the twin problems be confronted by the economic policy wizardry of Okonjo-Iweala? Indeed, that issue was notably avoided in the public statements on the fruits of their august meeting. Okonjo-Iweala informed Nigerians that foreign investors would flood Nigeria as a result of her visit. How would that solve the problems of escalating and ever rising cost of everything in Nigeria, and except for those who had hidden stolen funds, or were benefiting from such, the harsh realities were indescribable.
As a guest, her proffering the right policy advice to curb hardship and reinstate both direction and control of the economy, was more paramount to Tinubu. Removal of fuel subsidy, and the subsequent near constant change of petrol price, compelled the NLC-TUC to call out Nigerian workers to a work to rule action, the last such strike action was January 2012.
In Buhari’s 8-year governance, organized Labor very quickly condoned vile government policies and not a single day of strike action was implemented by organized Labor. In Tinubu’s 76-days government, Labor has threatened thrice to halt the economy and this time it appears, the strike actions may well take place.
CONTINUING TO FUEL EXTERNAL US DOLLAR PURCHASES: CAN OKONJO-IWEALA INFLUENCE THE NAIRA EXCHANGE RATE? OR THE NOW REVEALED NNPCL $3 BILLION DOLLAR LOAN?
Curbing the current spiral of the exchange rate between the Naira and US Dollar, was not even mentioned by the two highest level officials of Nigeria and the World Bank on August 4, 2023. Where else and when could have been more appropriate? Rather, it was stated that a flood of foreign investors would soon follow suit as a result of the visit. Which economy would the investors patronize, one with an unstoppable devaluation of her currency? How will such investors repatriate their revenues?
Tinubu was expectant that miracle policies would be advanced by Okonjo-Iweala, soon after he told Nigerians that he (Tinubu) is expectant that Nigeria would soon witness rapid economic prosperity. That expectation is wishful thinking, and the Tinubu government has long lost the capacity to direct and lead the Nigerian economy on the pathway to short-term growth and prosperity. Only on August 15, 2023, the University of Ibadan, announced it had approved a 3-day work week as a result of the effects of higher cost of transportation. Surely the economy is heading towards a worse recession than Buhari’s 2015-2017 recession.
NNPCL has announced obtaining a loan of $3 Billion USD to stabilize the wrecked Naira. How swift to get foreign US Dollar loan? What were the loan conditions, and why will all this be secrets, in a democracy? Who approved the loan as approving authority in Nigeria? How can such a facility “stabilize” the Naira? How much outstanding payments from foreign oil companies owed to Nigeria for two decades now have been retrieved by NNPCL? Those outstanding payments is well over $30 Billion USD. What statutory link does NNPCL have with monetary policies or its making, for NNPCL to search and obtain foreign loans for Nigeria? Soon all the country’s children will be sold to foreigners, without public consent or knowledge. Naira’s current exchange rate and value problem is much deeper than NNPCL alone can solve or stabilize: indeed, NNPCL is at the root of the economic problems of Nigeria and it can not pretend to be or proffer simple solutions.
SINCE OKONJO-IWEALA FAILED, WHAT WILL DELAY THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL COLLAPSE?
These solutions now being tendered here, have been around for nearly two years now, but has been neglected by the main-stream media, organized private sector, OPS, and government. In enunciating them, I made strenuous efforts to render them as nationalistic programs, as distinct from the solutions offered by the Bretton woods. Until Tinubu went south, and the Nigerian public is fully now set to masticate and throw out all the negative anti-people policies he represents: these solutions will not be accepted by the World Bank and IMF ( the real reason Okonjo-Iweala refused to espouse them).
Any government in Nigeria, including the new Tinubu Ministers, or any other government that may come up in the nearest future, will be booed after less than 6-months, unless that government implements these policies. It happened to Buhari, on his last days in office, all apologetic and no longer “Sai Baba”, as he flew away to Daura. Here are the solutions :
a. Accept ZERO CORRUPTION as government priority policy No. 1, and effect speedy prosecution, through the Rule of Law, of all those fingered and red carded by the EFCC
b. Round-table the OPS, and reduce the Cost of Living index in Nigeria by 32% in the first instance, and raise public hope, and heal the suffering populace
c. Reduce the price of petrol to N75.00 per liter, and defend the policy
d. Peg the exchange rate of the Naira and US Dollar at N92.00 to $1.00 USD, tighten global dollar usages or expenditures in Nigeria: promote public use of Made-in-Nigeria goods, and drastically reduce all dollar expenditures
e. FREE EDUCATION from kindergarten to the University for all citizens; FREE MEDICAL SERVICES for all citizens, fund the education and health sectors fully, as government top priority policy No. 2
f. ZERO FOREIGN LOANS: renegotiate and cancel all prior foreign loans and preserve national sovereignty
g. Build 7- new electricity generation plants, paid up upfront, raise electricity supply to 12,000 Megawatts in 24 months and revamp electricity transmission and distribution, and eliminate corruption in the industry
h. Return the political model of the country to the Parliamentary system to reduce cost of political campaigns and eschew kleptocracy, in stealing Treasury funds to prepare for future elections; reduce political office tenures to only two terms for both executive and legislative positions, and eliminate security votes and the immunity clause.
Unless all the above solutions are applied URGENTLY, Nigeria is headed to an inescapable implosion, sooner than later.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES MOTION TO DISSOLVE NIGERIA ON MONDAY, AUGUST 7, 2023: ALL ON GLOBAL TV & VIDEO
There was palpable tension, national disgrace and embarrassment, as well as fracas on the floor of the House of Representatives in Abuja on Monday, August 7, 2023. A member’s Motion to dissolve Nigeria peacefully and permit its component parts to form new political entities, based on agreed peaceful negotiations, was tabled. The presiding Chair was caught completely unaware, and repeatedly refused to accede that the Motion be mentioned or debated further.
In the ensuing commotion, all these were caught on global TV, and viral video, lasting for more than one hour: ultimately it winded down and the House was redirected to another agenda item. These signs are the Tinibunometrics of the trajectory of Nigeria in the short and near term. Why is the level of tension in the polity this high? It is again because there are so many negative issues going on at the same time.
Both the pace and speed of governance, are too fast, and numerous, and all are being encouraged by the Tinubu government. There is no diversifying the sources of political input and output, to neutralize policy effects and consequences. Unless this is achieved, Nigeria is heading towards an implosion: if this were a Parliamentary model system, the government will have resigned by now, or thrown out on a confidence motion. In this Nigerian case, the Presidency has been bought with money, and the population are serfs, manipulated egregiously and controlled by the political despots in Aso Villa. But it is important to study the dissolution pattern of the Soviet Union, with its focus on militarism, science and technology, and less on popular will or welfare; at the dialectical juncture, the capacity to influence or control dissolution was lost by those in power.
The agitations to Restructure the country Nigeria, is now almost completely gone or lost in silence, and the ethnic divisions and denials of basic political rights to citizens, (especially the Igbos), due to ethnic and political differences is so pronounced that further such renewed deprivations will increase the agitations to dismember the polity, based on negotiated peaceful agreements, totally in exclusion of violence or belligerence. Buying votes, delegates and huge bribe money for judicial officers, judges and INEC senior officials is not democracy, including actions on ethnic and religious DOMINATION. Such practices are kleptocracy, which leads to delayed or quick disintegration of political entities. Several examples abound, Koumingtang (Taiwan) China and the Peoples Republic of China, Singapore and Malaysia, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, Somalia, South Sudan and the Islamic Republic of Sudan. Indeed, the latest ECOWAS escapade in Niger Republic, has increased ethnic Yoruba and Hausa divisions, as well as political instability in Nigeria.
The trigonometry of strategic political structures emanating from the Tinubu Aso Villa is very capable of further pushing Nigeria into internecine fractiousness that will lead to eventual disintegration. No less are the soon expected judicial rulings on the 2023 Presidential election tribunals.
Tinubu must decelerate now, or push the country to a calamitous precipice: in directing universities not to increase tuition fees, and signaling a quasi-return to “fuel subsidy”, both policies show better political wisdom. But can only these save the Tinubu gambit? Maybe the system may live to struggle further in the future. Watch, wait and guess how Nigeria will go next!
Signed:
Dr. Orefo Nnamdi Onochie
Chairman-Convener
NACOPPIN NIGERIA 2023
August 16, 2023.
