Nigeria is in the hole and Tinubu is still digging, By Majeed Dahiru

Following the twin policy decisions to remove subsidy on petrol and the floatation of the naira against major world currencies by President Ahmed Bola Tinubu upon assumption of office a little over a year ago, the predictable consequences of these IMF/World Bank induced neoliberal economic experimentations have exploded in the faces of its promoters. President Tinubu’s widely advised but ill-informed policy decision to remove petrol subsidy and float the naira has seen the price of Nigeria’s most utilised energy product quadruple from less than N200 a litre to between N700 and N800 a litre, thereby setting off the worst inflation in the living memory of Africa’s most populous country. With wages remaining stagnant but thoroughly depreciated by the free fall of the naira and soaring energy prices, most of Nigeria’s 200 million people are now experiencing a cost of existence crisis that is accentuated by the widespread hunger, misery and deprivation in the land.

Having endured the dire consequences of the toxic effects of the IMF/World Bank induced experimentation in the last one year, the Nigerian people have decided to draw the attention of their leaders to their unbearable plight by embarking on protests. Tagged “end bad governance,” the organic, amorphous and unorganised protest by Nigerians from all divides that have been united by hunger have been on the streets of Abuja, Lagos, Kaduna, Kano, Port Harcourt, Benin, Jos, Maiduguri, etc., making demands for a better Nigeria, wherein their welfare and security are guaranteed. The protests, which have been characterised by social unrest in some cases, have one consistent demand among many others – the return of subsidy on petrol.

This is because common sense economics have linked the current hardship in Nigeria to the cost of petrol; an energy product that powers the bulk of Nigeria’s small-and-medium-scale-enterprises-dominated economy. Petrol, as Nigeria’s most utilised energy product, drives the largest segment of the country’s Gross Domestic Product, from agriculture to services and from transportation to manufacturing sectors. Common economic sense should have indicated that an increase in the price of such an energy product will increase the cost of production and induce a severe cost push form of inflation, such as the kind Nigeria is currently grappling with. And many Nigerians have come to this common sense realisation that subsidy removal on petrol by President Tinubu is primarily responsible for the current hardship and hunger they are facing.

Having realised this basic linkage between high cost of energy and inflation, the people enthusiastically demanded an address from the president in the hopes that like former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan, President Tinubu will see reason and reduce the cost of petrol by restoring petrol subsidy as a way of fundamentally rolling back the current precarious socio-economic conditions of the people. Unfortunately, while the ordinary man on the streets of the suburbs of Abuja like Nyanya, Mararaba and the street hawkers in Kano, Lagos and Maiduguri have understood the imperative of energy security (availability, accessibility and affordability) to economic growth, development and prosperity, the top politicians and technocrats in the Aso Villa seat of power are yet to come to terms with this basic matter of economic fundamentals.

President Tinubu’s address to the nation not only failed to address the fundamental demand for the restoration of petrol subsidy by the Nigerian people but he doubled down on the fatal policy error of his administration in an unfeeling and detached manner, with a touch of disdain for the people. It would seem by his response to the protesters’ demand to restore subsidy on petrol, that President Tinubu has thrown Nigerians into a bottomless hell hole of hunger and misery, and he is still digging, while at the same time insisting that his worst performance in the last one year is the best for Nigeria. By his detached, aloof and out of touch address to the Nigerian people, which was lacking in economic common sense of pledging to intervene in the high cost of Nigeria’s most utilised energy product, President Tinubu has cast a dark shadow that has rendered the helplessness of the people even more hopeless.

And to overcome this state of hopeless helplessness, the theme of the protest may shift gear from “end bad governance” to “end bad government” with calls for President Tinubu and his government to step down. Already, the protests and social unrests have resurged after his address and is now taking a revolutionary dimension with some protesters brandishing of the Russian flag and some calling on the military to intervene. Unbeknownst to many, the brandishing of the Russian flag is a symbolic rejection of what the protesters consider neo-liberal economic influence of the West through the IMF and World Bank over Nigeria, which they blame for the toxic economic policies of the Tinubu administration that have poisoned their individual socio-economic well-being. To avert a system collapse and a consequential reign of terror that may engulf the country, President Tinubu is hereby urged in the interest of national security of the Nigerian state to restore subsidy on petrol without further delay as his numerous interventions are ineffectual because the fundamentals of energy security is lacking. A word they say is enough for the wise but many words are not enough for the foolish.

Majeed Dahiru, a public affairs analyst, writes from Abuja and can be reached through dahirumajeed@gmail.com.