Once again, it’s important to remember. We don’t help our leaders by being forgetful. Tinubu made a whole lot of promises to the people. Like all politicians, the promises covered everything under the sun. Like most politicians, it appears he has forgotten some of them. 

Tinubu promised to renew hope. But Hope Renewal has become a tired slogan. The country is bleeding jobs. The youthful and smart are fleeing foreign lands. Insecurity abounds and debilitates. Hunger is spreading. After 15 months, many say they have become more hopeless since Tinubu arrived. But Tinubu says he needs time. 

Tinubu promised to overhaul the security strategy to check insurgencies, rampant banditry and kidnapping. Since he assumed power no radical kinetic and non-kinetic strategies have been instituted. He promised anti-terrorist battalions. Besides changing service chiefs, nothing new has happened. 15 months might not be enough to stamp out banditry but it’s sufficient time roll out the  Tinubu strategy. He promised massive recruitment into the army. He promised technological warfare. The current parlous situation demands a carefully thought-out blend of ruthless military and deft political strategy. 

The aim of this epistle is not condemnation. Tinubu has to read his manifesto again. Perhaps that might help him find urgency. Banditry, kidnapping and violent crimes have multiplied across many zones. The old methods are not working.  Tinubu has nothing new. The security agencies appear more eager to take on protesters. People are dying and livelihoods are perishing. These crimes are metastasizing. It’s sad we have become accustomed to them and public outrage no longer accompanies mass abductions as in the past. If these crimes fail to elicit our collective shock and anger, soon our country will become another  Somalia. The situation is festering. A substantial decentralization of power and authority to enable the regions own these problems squarely and bear the full consequences of the lack of honest and diligent political engagement is what  Tinubu of the old would have preached. 

Tinubu promised to reform the police. Any government intent on transformative leadership must start with the police. Perhaps Tinubu’s hands are full. So he needs time to formulate his reform bill. But he can start with some reorientation of the police, some rebranding. He has tripled the salaries of judges. So why didn’t he include the police in that salary reformation business if the idea was to insulate the criminal justice system from corruption? Perhaps that wasn’t the aim. 

Tinubu has an ambitious crude oil production vision. He wants to ramp up production to 2.6 million BPD by 2027. And hit 4 million BPD by 2030. Yet, he hasn’t quite handled crude oil theft. There is no reason why a debt-ridden country with a floundering local currency, that has total regional tech surveillance,  should allow thieves to steal its main foreign exchange earner in the open. The president isn’t showing any determination to fight the major problems.

Tinubu talked so much about agriculture in his rosy manifesto. He said he would recharge the Lake Chad. He said he would reticulate dams and dig irrigation channels to feed rural farms. He said he would establish commodity exchange boards. He said he would build agro-processing plants in rural areas to check wastage of harvests. He said he would build  grain storage facilities near urban centres. He said he would make sure we produce what we consume. He said he would make us export rather than import. We need not score him, lest we be deemed impatient. But as a good accountant, he can ask his darling  Deloitte to conduct an audit of his performance. 

Tinubu needs to look at his colourful manifesto again. He has to see what milestones in import substitutions he has met. He promised to clear thousands upon thousands of hectares of forests and give them to unemployed youths to farm. He said he would double the size of arable land being cultivated in the country in four years. Had he spent one trillion naira on tractors and dams and storages before rebuilding the house of the VP with 15 billion  Naira and buying a new presidential jet for  150  billion Naira, the hungry and jobless youths might be less frustrated.  It’s true, he needs time, but making the masses feel that he is taking meat for himself  from the watery soup he is cooking in the kitchen 

Tinubu promised to protect the naira and economy by limiting foreign loans. At the outset, he said the exchange rate of the naira was around N700-800 to the dollar. He said he would work to strengthen it and bring the rate down to about N300 to the dollar. We might forgive him for floating the naira in rough waters without a life jacket, but he said he would only take loans for projects that can generate the revenue to repay the loans. It’s difficult to know what made spending 100 million dollars on a presidential jet such a priority now.  The president, it appears, had good intentions but a haphazard strategy. 

On sports, he promised the return to school and grassroots sports. All our politicians make these promises. Tinubu said he would make school sports the cornerstone of his sports development program. 15 months have passed. He promised a National Sports  Industry Policy, NSIP.  He regretted that we had slept on a gold mine. The Olympic games have come and gone. The result was stark. Tinubu has no excuses now. He promised a seed fund for the welfare of athletes. We knew all manifestoes contain empty promises, but our best athletes are increasingly shifting allegiance to other countries. It won’t be shocking to see some of them running for small African countries soon. 

Before the 2023 elections, Tinubu acknowledged that we had 130 million youths and that youth unemployment was outrageously high. He said he would embolden the youth and not expect them “to do the bidding of the govt. “  Politicians are like salesmen.  Tinubu promised social, economic, and political empowerment of young people. He promised to cut youth unemployment by half in four years. For women, Tinubu promised inclusion. He pledged to push legislation to give women 35% of all governmental positions. Some folks now believe that Tinubu made too many ‘audio’ promises.

Let’s forget about the social welfare programs until he appoints a new minister. But let’s remind him that he promised to confront the out-of-school-children problem. His social welfare program has to be imaginative. A social welfare program that relies on avaricious politicians to share money and food to the poor and weak is lazy and ineffective. Rather than feed politicians with unconditional cash handouts and palliatives meant for the vulnerable, the president should focus social welfare resources on health and education and rural agriculture. 

To renew hope he must not be silent on corruption. Yet corruption can’t be tackled by empty noises made while chasing shadows. He might prefer to build systems to eliminate opportunities. Systems are good. But many African politicians say that just to kick the can down the road. No good leader should miss the opportunity  Yahaya Bello presented to send a goodwill message to the anti-corruption institutions. Yet the president must reflect. Perhaps Yahaya Bello feels victimized and unlucky. The president appointed into his cabinet persons whom Yahaya Bello must feel are conspicuously filthy. Because these persons were indicted by the EFCC loudly long before the agency looked at Bello. 

To renew hope, the president must help the anti-corruption agencies by a personal lifestyle that doesn’t create moral confusion. The president and his family must avoid all transactions that breach the conflict of interest code. The process by which the Lagos Calabar road was awarded has sent a wrong message to governors, ministers and senior government officials. It must have made some foreign investors develop cold feet because it signals that nothing has changed.