I AM almost sure that there are very few Nigerians who do not know that a lot of things are not well with our country at this point in time. It is trite to restate that insecurity is worsening, while the economy remains in the doldrums. Cost of living continues to soar as prices of just about everything take flight off the ground, burst through the roofs, penetrate the atmosphere, and head into outer space. Every day, there are reports of gruesome killings of fellow compatriots — invariably those that cannot defend themselves — in many parts of the country.

We were still trying to wrap our heads round the massacre of over 200 people in Yelewata, Benue State, when news came again that another 14 persons, travelling to attend a wedding, were killed, again in Plateau. Just hit the browser on your phone, search Nigeria news, and the grim headlines are thrown at you. Or in town, at the newsstands, crowds of “free readers” gather around vendors to glimpse the day’s headlines on the cover pages of newspapers. They end up discussing the killings, invariably perpetrated by herdsmen on land-grabbing missions in many parts of the country.

Away from news of killings, this week ending today saw reports that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, have arrested top officials of the state oil monopoly, NNPC, in the matter of fraud to the tune of $7.2 billion. Read that again. $7.2 billion, not N7.2 billion, which itself is a princely sum by any standards. If you then convert $7.2 billion into Naira at the prevailing exchange rate, you might have an idea of just how much money some people have played games with at our expense. Especially when you consider that the sums are in connection with the government-owned Port Harcourt and Warri refineries. You can only begin to arrive at the conclusion that solutions to Nigeria’s problems belong in the extra-terrestrial realm.

And on Wednesday, the issue fronted by most newspapers was about the national economy. The Senate voted to allow the executive branch of government roll over implementation of the capital expenditure component of the 2024 Budget till December of this year. It is the second time the Senate will do this; it granted the first extension, which was to last till June 30, 2025. The development irked many Nigerians, including senators elected on the platform of the ruling APC. Reacting to the development,  Senate Leader, Senator Yahaya Abdullahi (APC, Kebbi North), noted that the country is financially bleeding and that implementation of the 2025 budget had not even started. He urged  all to forget about it.

Expressing concerns over the implications for fiscal credibility, Abdullahi warned that such repeated extensions could undermine public confidence in the budget process.

His words:  “The credibility of this government is going down. There has never been a time in the history of the National Assembly where the appropriation bill is extended twice in one cycle. The executive arm of government needs to explain to Nigerians what’s happening.”

I align with Abdullahi, while also agreeing with Senator Henry Seriake Dickson (PDP, Bayelsa West), that it might have been as a result of too much preoccupation with 2027. Get it?

“Maybe there is too much preoccupation with politics and 2027, too much concentration on receiving defectors across the country,” Dickson said at the Senate plenary on Tuesday.

Dickson may well be correct. It is safe to aver that this government has been in office just about 25 months. In that space of time, it would probably have spent no less than six months to settle down and grapple with the burning issues of insecurity and the economy, which were already VERY bad under Buhari, only for Tinubu himself to pour petrol into the fire with the peremptory removal of subsidy on petrol. Spending subsequent months trying to wriggle out of this self-inflicted injury, suddenly the effort to get re-elected got underway. Without notice, without a whistle from the electoral umpire, efforts to get re-elected became the singular preoccupation of political office-holders, to the detriment of the economy and overall citizen welfare. 

As it is, bright-haired boys of the ruling party are those that can engineer defections from other parties, or become linchpins that foment crises in these parties that will eventually be to the advantage of the ruling party. Poor politics, poor politicking, poor politicians. As a result, within just 18 months, governance was shoved aside and all hands turned to the deck of re-election. As I have always said, if we don’t get the politics right, we will never get the economy right. It is obvious that the 2024 budget had to be rolled over twice because the hands holding levers that drive the economy abandoned the levers for cheap politicking. Imagine the president saying that he is gladdened by opposition parties being in disarray.

Fellow Nigerians, just brace up for another season of hardship. If, as Senator Abdullahi said, implementation of the 2025 Budget has not even started, we might as well perish any thought of economic turnaround. And to think that in about three months time, they will start preparing another budget that will be rolled over! What manner of economic management is this? Surely Nigerians don’t deserve this, but they deserve the kind of government they get. I just keep wondering how the good people of Nigeria successively end up with bad leaders, election after election, with the one we said was bad turning to be better than the replacement. How? TGIF.