More loans, more pains and the season of discontent, By Reuben Abati

“I hear that the National Assembly has approved the external borrowing of a $2.2 billion for the Tinubu administration to address the fiscal deficit in the 2024 budget.”

“Bros, I tire. I just tire. What on earth do they do with all these borrowings?”

“There is actually a $9.17 billion deficit in the 2024 budget, when you add Eurobonds, interest on Ways and Means, foreign debt and domestic debt. And, I hear that Nigeria can borrow more in line with Section 21(1) and Section 27(1) of the Debt Management Office (DMO) Establishment Act of 2003.”

“The DMO will quote anything to please any government in power. Is that woman still there? My concern is what they do with all the money.”

“They want to service debts and finance capital projects.”

“In November? I would have thought that by now, we should have been talking about Budget 2025. This is November. We are rushing to borrow more money as the year ends. Don’t they want to maintain the budget cycle again? I am confused. And which capital projects is anyone talking about? SUVs, for the lawmakers? Presidential jets? Foreign trips? I am sorry I can’t see any capital projects. They just want to borrow more money for consumption, not productivity. The roads are bad. Nobody talks about the railway system in the country anymore. Air travel is a nightmare. The refineries are still not working. The cost of living is high. The average man cannot breathe, cannot eat, cannot live. Yet, the Federal Executive Council approved more external borrowing and it took the National Assembly 48 hours to rubber-stamp the loan.”

“Did you expect anything different? The National Assembly is an extension of the Executive arm of government. It will rubber stamp anything that comes from the Executive and that is the case with the VAT Bill too.”

“But if it is a bill on things that would pave the way for good governance, the same National Assembly could spend years huffing and puffing, but anything that would benefit the elite and make it easier to have access to more of the state’s resources, the APC-dominated National Assembly would act quickly. The real wonderful in wonderland.”

“Have you heard?”

“You and your rumours.”

“This one is hot oh.”

“The problem with you people in this country is rumour-mongering. Una too dey carry gist. Una carry gist so tey, you even carry phone spread rumour that Otunba Mike Adenuga had died. This is a man who gave many of you the opportunity to use mobile phones in your life. The Spirit of Africa. A Patriot. I am sure it must have been one yeye man, using a useless, miserable phone. Nigerians are something else.”

“In Yoruba culture, when your death is prematurely and wrongly announced, it means the person will live long. We pray for long life for Otunba Mike Adenuga, in very good health, upstairs and downstairs and in all ways, with more grace and prosperity. Do you remember the story of Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, nationalist, founding father of the nation, pan-Africanist. On 8 November, 1989, his death was announced; meanwhile the man was hale and hearty and working on a book in his library when he read his own obituary! NTA had rushed to do a documentary on the life and times of the inimitable Zik. Newspapers showed up the following morning with editorials. Columnists wanted to be the first to announce Zik’s death. Such was the force of his impact in politics, business and newspapering. Except that Zik was alive and he lived for another seven years. A burial committee was even announced. Bros, some of the members of that burial committee died before Zik. In Yoruba culture, when people wish you dead, they are actually praying inadvertently for your longevity. May Otunba Mike Adenuga live longer than those who want him buried before his time. So shall it be. Amen.”

“Is it not journalists? When journalists are not killing people, they are sending them to jail, without conviction. Who is a journalist these days?”

“I don’t know. I guess things are so bad now that anybody with access to the internet can put any information out there on social media. It is the price that the world is paying for the democratisation of the information process, the Indomie-nisation of news, the collapse of traditional media systems, and the emergence of charlatans in what was once a sacred profession. But let me give you my gist now?”

“Okay. Fire! Just make sure it is not a fabrication by some ignoramus.”

“Hen. Hen. I hear that.”

“You heard. Hen. Hen.”

“I heard that principal officers of the National Assembly, in fact two of them from the South, locked horns, with one holding the other’s agbada around the neck, both trying to suffocate each other. A blow. A jab. I don’t want to mention names. One Northern Senator had to wade in to prevent bloodshed.”

“The story sounds fabulous. Mention names.”

“I hear they are trying very hard to cover it up and to prevent pictures of the ugly tiff getting to the media. My source is impeccable.”

“Oh. Oh. Oh. Story. Story. But what has this got to do with the external borrowing approval. What we hear is that the lawmakers all agreed on that. So, what could be the problem after they passed one of the fastest pieces of legislation in Nigeria. No public hearing. Nothing.”

“It was a fight over who could show that he was more loyal to the Presidential Villa.”

“Must be a fight over who gets what for his own stomach or for his own people. After all, you said a Northern Senator waded in. He shouldn’t have, if that is true. What is wrong with that Senator? Who asked him to stop whatever could have been like a Jake Paul/Mike Tyson fight or a Joshua/Dubois fight. He should have allowed the two gladiators to beat each other up, and by now, we would have known more. I like it when politicians fight. We get to know more, because it is we, the people who suffer in the long run.”

“Just as the people of Rivers state are the ones going to suffer if the Court of Appeal declares when it delivers its reserved judgement in the FAAC Allocation matter, that the Rivers State Government led by Governor Sim Fubara cannot receive any further federal allocations if it does not have a properly presented, passed and legally valid budget. Who suffers?”

“The people suffer, and that is because we are running a bowl-in-hand federation. The states are so dependent on the Federal Government for manna. But nobody should blame the judiciary. The source of the problem is the political gladiators of Rivers State and the elders in that state who talk from both sides of the mouth and serve both Wike and Fubara. One state. Two masters. They have all managed to turn Rivers State into an atomistic society perpetually at war against itself.”

“I know that phrase. It sounds familiar. That must be Professor Emmanuel Ayandele, former vice chancellor of the University of Calabar describing the old Cross Rivers state of the 80s, in the days of late Professor Okon Edet Uya, who used to talk about Oron-phobia. But those ones were even intellectualising the politics of Cross Rivers State. What you have in Rivers State is sheer elite thuggery, politics without conscience, agbero politics and the dictatorship of one man who thinks he is the lord and master of Rivers politics.”

“So, I insist that whatever the judiciary decides is not the problem. The problem in Rivers State will not go away whatever the Court of Appeal decides, except President Tinubu intervenes and cuts off the oxygen that is fuelling the chaos in that state.”

“No. President Tinubu is not the headmaster of any state of Nigeria. It is the people of Rivers State that should resolve their own problems. Let the critical actors solve their own problems. For all I care at this stage, they should lock themselves up in a room and have a slugfest. Whoever comes out alive is the winner.”

“What kind of talk is that? You are recommending jungle justice. Do you want to kill someone? Just look at it. If you lock up Sim Fubara and Nyesom Wike, who says nobody can take Rivers away from him in a room, what will be the likely outcome?”

“I don’t know. This is no longer a matter for the courts. Let them fight, and let us know who the man is.”
“This is a democracy. Only Barbarians resort to fist-fight.”

“Then let President Tinubu wade into the matter. This is the point I am making. Wike is his minister. He is so powerful in Rivers State because he is a big chief in the Federal Capital Territory. The President should remove the rug from his feet. Take the oxygen that makes it possible for him to Buga oh, from him and you will see there will be peace in Rivers State.”

“Now, I am convinced that you do not understand politics. That is not how politics works. President Tinubu needs Wike as much as Wike needs him. It is not about Tinubu sacking Wike. Who told you that will guarantee peace in Rivers? Why should Rivers be important to Tinubu? Is it possible that a strong, properly empowered Wike is politically more relevant to Tinubu than the whole of Rivers State put together?”

“How can one man be so important?”

“In politics, what you don’t know, you don’t know. Politics is the ultimate magic, the topmost art of illusion, known to man. Why do you think Donald Trump is on his way back as the president of the largest economy in the world, despite his many shortcomings, including being a convicted felon?”

“Politics does not always throw up the best people in the society. I know. I guess we must know that. And the people who vote have their own ideas. We just need to let the people know that whatever you decide, you must be ready to live with it. In four years, you can change your mind.”

“Yeah. Yeah. I hope the people of Rivers State are learning and learning good. And we will see how the Americans would learn their own lessons under Trump 2.0 too.”

“Trump has just named his full complement of Ministerial nominees; 15 in total.”

“I saw that, but I won’t say I am impressed with the list. Just a collection of MAGA loyalists, yes men and women and a few old rivals, completely eclectic. What is Robert Kennedy Jr. doing as nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, for example? Another nominee is a wrestling CEO, named as Linda McMahon, to take charge of the Education Department, a more or less inexperienced choice. Pete Hegseth has sexual abuse issues, like Matt Gaetz, hanging around his neck. At least Gaetz stepped down before he could be openly disgraced by the Ethics Committee of the House of Representatives. And then this Scott Bessent – an openly gay man appointed by Trump who touts Christian evangelism and far-right ideology, even when he may not be able to quote the Bible. Politicians are the same everywhere. They just look out for themselves first. America First, in my view, means Donald Trump first. But let the Americans live with it. They have made their choice.”

“All said and done, America has nominated just 15 people, not a nominee per state or per ethnicity. I have not seen anybody saying their own ethnic group has not been represented. No Black. No Latino. No Arab-American and yet no issue.”

“It is their Constitution, and their culture. We are talking about America not your “whatever” countries in the Third World, please. This is the richest country. The budget that Brooke Rollins as Agriculture Secretary will control is more than the annual budget of some three African countries! In any case, what matters is what a Trump Presidency means for the world, climate change, global peace, the competition with China. But I don’t even want to beat myself over other people’s problems. In two days, America will celebrate Thanksgiving. I have been seeing some pictures of very regal, fleshy Turkeys. Chop time! Fun time.”

“You like food too much. You are reading about American Thanksgiving and you are already doing long throat. I don’t have Thanksgiving on my mind. I am thinking of Christmas. Will there be money for Christmas? School fees? Money for gifts. I hope you know that today, the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria is going to announce their usual benchmark rate, CRR, MPR, asymmetric corridor which will tell us how hard life is, how harder it may become and whether or not we can breathe a little. With inflation rate close to 40 per cent, may the Lord help us.”

“You may be surprised. Benchmark rate may actually come down.”

“I want to be surprised. But I actually also know this country so well that when things go up, they don’t come down.”

“Not quite my friend. The ex-depot price of fuel has just come down from N990 per litre to N970 per litre. And that is a fact. Christmas gift from Dangote Refinery through the now peaceful oil marketers to us.”

“What a wonderful fact!”

“Our God has answered our prayers, He has sent to us, early ahead of Christmas, a Father who cares.”

“You are right. You are absolutely right.”

“Hear! Hear!”

Reuben Abati, a former presidential spokesperson, writes from Lagos.