Why is Nigeria so unlucky? By goji Egbujo

Tinubu was recently in Kenya. There, he blamed the world for the plight of the African child. He said if the African child could be sure of one sandwich or egg a day, they wouldn’t be fearful of education. Tinubu’s grammatical issues aside, he appears to be losing touch with reality.

Tinubu doesn’t need to make his speeches  memorable.  The world already knows he is neither Marthin Luther King nor Bola Ige.  We dont need these memes . And he  must stop speaking like a NADECO activist. His first term is almost over, and the international audience already holds an unflattering view of Nigeria. This is not the arena for  half-digested ideas. The world knows his  party controls nearly all states in the country. Is it Macron who should feed Nigerian children and send them back to school? Or Botswana?

The era of “balabluing” should be behind us. This is the time to recharge Lake Chad. We cant stand any  new versions of  poisoned holy communion  and church rat tales.  If Tinubu had developed the habit of regular media chats at home, he would have outgrown these tired congratulations to himself.

At his next stop, Tinubu spoke passionately about how a commodities board would have saved Africa. Ironically, the commodities exchange board he promised Nigerians during his campaign hasnt  materialized. The country still loses nearly 50 percent of its agricultural output to inefficient markets and poor storage. Yet Tinubu had the nerve to preach commodities exchange on the African stage. When the interviewer reminded him that, as president of Africa’s largest country, he was the right person to initiate the scheme, Tinubu became a pitiable sight. Nigerians are daily subjected to avoidable shame.  Do our leaders prepare for these engagement?

In one encounter, he bragged about constructing the Lagos-Sokoto highway without importing bitumen. His audience probably believed the road had been completed and handed him oversized applause. But the truth is, that road is still far from done — just like the Lagos-Calabar coastal road. Perhaps both less than 10% completed . These international appearances do not help Nigeria’s already tattered image.

While Tinubu was abroad boasting about his reforms, his acolytes back home — dressed in his signature aso-ebi — were assembling poor and hungry Nigerians, handing them miserable cash in Tinubu-branded envelopes in exchange for their PVCs. Nigeria’s farcical elections have become the butt of jokes across the continent. In scenes as repulsive as open defecation, these men openly distributed parcels of cash to desperate people right in front of cameras. The repugnance was completely lost on them.

But that was perhaps only a small piece of Tinubu’s “Hope Renewal” program. The heavier chunk has triggered a major rift in his party’s Governors’ Forum — which controls nearly 90 percent of the nation’s governors. Newspapers report that funds gathered from state coffers and pooled for election have been tampered with. Some governors, unwilling to accept this lack of accountability quietly, attempted to  break away to form a factional forum. The country is in a deep mess.

These are the same governors of the same states plagued by high infant mortality rates and millions of out-of-school children. The very states ravaged by low agricultural output because of worsening insecurity. Yet they are busy gathering  funds to perpetuate a government which has failed to unite the country or protect the poor. In many of these states, schools remain shut and there are no functional emergency services. But all that matters to these politicians is unenlightened  self interest and political  conquests .

Tinubu should have used the platform in Kenya to discuss electricity — since we have become totally shameless. Instead, he chose to milk the glory of the Dangote Refinery. But the statistics of small and medium-scale factories being liquidated by lack of reliable power and skyrocketing fuel prices would shock the world. He should have told the world the truth: that his country epileptically distributes between 3,000 and 4,000 megawatts to over 230 million people — and that since he assumed office, virtually nothing has been added to that figure.

It is not enough to brag about concrete roads that are practically yet to commence. Tinubu should have confessed how opposition parties have suffered under his regime — how INEC has refused to register new parties, how his party resisted electronic transmission of results, and how the courts and security agencies have been used to scatter the opposition.

The entire  political class has weaponized poverty. Tinubu isn’t alone. But  Tinubu unlike many before him does not tolerate dissent and political plurality well. His trumpeted  reform policies often look like  revenue-gathering schemes with zero accountability. His anti-corruption efforts have focused more on bullying the opposition and chasing small-time “yahoo yahoo” boys than on stopping the massive hemorrhage of public resources. Impunity reigns supreme. Those who sit at Tinubu’s feet — regardless of conflict of interest or outright filth — are protected. This is the closest the country has come to a one-party dominant state. Nobody is fooled by the artificial fragmentation of the opposition. The country’s apparent  future disillusions .

There is a clear reason Nigerian youths are fleeing in droves. No reliable electricity, no functional public healthcare, no jobs, rampant insecurity, and a complete absence of principled politicking. Hope  has become a mirage .  Tinubu’s Nigeria has become a bad bet. On the world stage, our peers have left us far behind.

However , Nigeria is not unlucky. It has oil, gas, arable land, a massive youthful population, and a diaspora sending billions in remittances. The curse is structural — decades of systematic misgovernance by a self-serving  political class. The country’s democracy is an effective plutocracy. 

The country needs truly transformative leadership. It needs a renaissance. Not the perpetuation of stagnant, corrupt, half-competent, globetrotting plundering plutocrats  masquerading as divinely ordained sagacious democrats. The Nigerian people must rescue themselves.

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