By SUNNY IKHIOYA

President Bola Tinubu has just completed one year in office, and his praise singers are already giving him and his government pass marks. But the true assessment is the impact of his policies on the people, which as we know tells a different story. What were the conditions of most Nigerians when this government came in on May 29, 2023, and what is the situation today? It is glaring for everyone to see. 

We must, however, face the realities of our situation; enough of the razzmatazz. President Tinubu must decide on whose side he wants to belong, either on the side of the people or continue with his foreign-influenced neo- colonialists’ economic policies. Tinubu’s APC must not be over confident; we have seen what happened to PDP  and now what is happening to the ANC in South Africa; power is transient. 

The distortions in our systems are two pronged, both internal and external and these two have to be resolved before we progress further in our economics and politics. But in the interim, people appointed to the positions of leadership must set the ball rolling, they have to play their part, they are not making the work easier. You will not make any positive impact if you are not prudent with resources, and neither would you if you are not selfless,  de-tribalised,  focused, truthful, intelligent, zestful, charismatic and energetic. Yes, you need a lot of energy to follow up on the herculean task that you have to face. 

If you are not loved by the people, your programmes will be very difficult to sell. When you came to power with less than 40 percent votes, you should realise that you still have to work hard at winning the confidence of the other 60 plus percentage and you can only do this through transparent and open governance.  The people are suffering. You do not expect them to smile and embrace you when your policies are making life more difficult for them. Present leadership must think about this. 

Those of us saying that one year is not enough to assess performance are not being truthful; you met a terrible situation, its not your duty to make it worse. As it is, it is clear that government  put us in the situation that we have found ourselves;  the examples of failures are too glaring, but government should acknowledge the challenging situation and tighten its belt. Why build a bigger cabinet instead of rationalising on  what you met on ground? Is that belt tightening? Again, according to the news reports, Tinubu and Shettima have spent N8.64 billion on travel expenses in three months. The chain reaction to this decision is anyone’s guess. 

When we are ready, the people will know. Sort out the distortions in all of these; but above all, be careful with our foreign friends. I do not believe that  the recent activities of the international oil companies (IOCs) are as a result of all the reasons they have attributed to the cause. Everything has been deliberately contrived. In fact, how we have managed to survive as a nation despite their deliberate sabotage is a mystery. They predicted that the nation will be no more since 2015 and surely and deliberately they are working to actualize the permutations; it will depend on our leaders to be brave and confront these killers in the name of foreign aid. 

After more than 60 years, gas is being flared in Nigeria, which is part of the conspiracy. That we could not on our own conduct a credible census exercise is part of it. It is all a conspiracy planned from the beginning. We most look beyond our noses to find solutions to our problems. Our leaders have been manipulated from the beginning, and up until today, the hypnotism is still working on them. They will never admit it, but it is the reality that we have found ourselves,  in religion and ethnicity, no race on earth is so cursed. Who will free our leaders from this spell? They travel all over the world and observe things happening in other parts of the world. They come home and behave otherwise.  It is time for us to free ourselves. I cannot buttress this point more than the interview granted by Mrs Fatima Maada Bio, the first lady of Sierra Leone, that is currently trending.  If as an African you cannot understand her, then it’s too bad. Its time for the leadership of Africa to free itself from the bond of neocolonialism. 

According to her excellency: “The kind of mineral resources we have in our country is enough to take care of everybody in the country, we should not have a single poor person in Sierra Leone but unfortunately, we are not given the freewill to make decisions on our own mineral resources. There is always a big brother who decides, and when you fight and say no, we are not going to do this. They use the system to stop you. It is either they set you up with the opposition and they will be supporting the opposition against you from the back or they cause unnecessary chaos in your country, that you are not able to even govern your own people. They will do things to make you not to be functionable, and of course, any country that does not have peace can not develop. You have to have peace before you talk about development. 

“I will give you a simple example about Sierra Leone; every mining company that is in Sierra Leone today is owned by a foreigner, every mining company. If it is not the Chinese, it is the Americans or the British. Our electricity company is run by the British and we still don’t have light. We are looking for light, electricity, if you don’t have electricity, how can you talk about education? How can you talk about health facilities? How can you talk about improving the infrastructure of your country?….with all the minerals that we have, there is a cap that they put……Sierra Leone was benefitting 0.0001 per cent. Basically, a company can take as much as 100 million dollars out of the country in terms of minerals, and the country gets 10,000 dollars …..These are the things I believe that are stopping Africa from progressing. We don’t have a say….” 

Can you see any similarities with this and what is happening in Nigeria? Our leaders must wisen up. The US is building the biggest Consulate in the world here in Nigeria. Your guess is as good as mine.

*Ikhioya wrote via: www.southsouthecho.com