• Akinrinade: We shouldn’t expect him to address insecurities in the short term
• Dawn: No choice but to remove subsidy
• Agbeyegbe: His Legacy to Reconstructive Nigeria
• Mbamara: He must turn the Igbo question upside down to contain unrest
Ahead of President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s inauguration on Monday next week, Nigerians have revealed what they expect the incoming government to do immediately after handover.
Foremost among their expectations were the security challenges, which they hoped Tinubu would tackle without fear or complacency if he was to fix other sectors in the country.
Second on their list of demands from the incoming government is how to quickly fix what they described as the 'gomas economy’ inherited from President Muhammadu Buhari.
Third on the list of demands, addressing the issue of restructuring and governance in the country, many observers said the former Lagos State governor and his team should not only be treated cautiously but with a great sense of urgency.
They asserted: „Without taking a critical look at the fundamentals of the 1999 constitution to reform some of the issues, Nigeria will continue to sink into constitutional crisis without a solution.”
Also on the list of expectations is the need for the next president to address the South-Eastern or Igbo question, according to them, Nigeria cannot continue to 'ignore’ a quarter and the whole of its population and expect to enjoy peace.
They doubt Tinubu’s ability to fight corruption, and doubt whether a president-elect can curb corruption if someone like President Buhari, who realizes his charisma and integrity and promises to fight corruption, has not achieved much.
Essentially, the outgoing administration is considered to have failed Nigerians in three critical areas: security, economy and restructuring.
An estimated 63,111 people have been killed in security since Buhari took office on May 29, 2015. According to data obtained from the Nigeria Security Tracker (NST), a project of the Africa Program on External Relations, the deaths arose from terrorism, robbery, herdsmen/farmers conflicts, communal crises, cult conflicts and extrajudicial killings.
Under the outgoing administration, with an unprecedented debt profile, the economy is said to have performed poorly across seven key economic parameters.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the annual inflation rate in Nigeria rose for the fifth consecutive month to 22.22 percent in April 2023, reaching an almost 18-year high.
In his manifesto during the election campaign, Tinubu promised to prioritize security and the economy if elected. Nigerians will be looking forward from May 29 to see how the promise of 'renewed faith’ will be implemented.
Fred Agbagbe, a leading democrat in the National Democratic Alliance (NADECO), said: “No matter what anyone says about Tinubu, you will not hear that Tinubu will not perform or deliver. What we have had in Nigeria so far is a government that never delivers.
„In terms of expectations, we’re going to make a change in the presidential administration under him, and it’s going to be better.”
Akbagbe, advocate for the restructuring and transformation of the 1999 constitution, said: „Tinubu’s record goes with the restructuring and referendum that NADECO wanted. He was with us in NADECO when the restructuring issue came to a head. This is nothing new to him, he is not one of those who are looking for how to redefine restructuring and I believe he can use it as a political maneuver. It is doubtful whether his politics will go in that direction,” he said.
A former lawmaker from Rivers State, Bernard Miko, said expecting Tinubu to land was like breeding false hope. „Things have gone from bad to worse.”
According to him, “We are not going to set an agenda for Tinubu, but we will diligently monitor and follow how he implements what he has promised to achieve.
“As a shrewd politician with experience in the corporate world, in the oil industry, we do not expect Tinubu to fail.
„He has shown quality so we don’t expect him to falter. My advice to Nigerians is that we should not expect anything but monitor what Tinubu has promised to do and point it out to him if he deviates.
General Alani Akinrinade (RTD), a former Army chief, then Chief of Defense Force and Minister of Agriculture and Industry, doubts that Tinubu will soon be able to achieve as much as Nigerians expect in the area of security. It is not a security issue that any Nigerian who understands the magnitude of the challenge expects Tinubu to overcome in the short term.
He said: „As far as I am concerned, this is not a simple problem because the country has allowed it to fester for too long. I agree that Tinubu will put together his own team, which will understand the scale of the problem, but as a military man, I know that the insecurity challenges facing the country have taken many dimensions. I can tell you.
There are many interests, said Aquinas, “I don’t think we all understand them very clearly. I don’t know if the various interests really want to address the security issue because I don’t know what they are getting out of it and what they expect Tinubu to achieve in that area in a short period of time.
„Before we start giving some advice, we need to understand the problem clearly. The last administration made a lot of promises before it took over in 2015, but here we are eight years later, still talking about insecurity. If we start expecting more now, we will be disappointed and people will start complaining.” I don’t want to. It’s good to be optimistic, but we need to understand the scale and depth of what we’re talking about.
Acknowledging the fact that Tinubu has inherited economic problems, the Director-General, Development Agenda of the Commission for Western Nigeria (DAWN), Seye Oyeleye, said the magnitude and severity of the economic challenges facing the president-elect is not lacking. Give him some breathing room during the honeymoon period, and he’s expected to land.
„However, the good news in my opinion is that if a person can be described as very ready for a job, I believe that person is Tinubu, and I suspect he will not be afraid to take very difficult economic decisions. We are on the road to full recovery and we will continue to develop sustainably as a country. can enjoy.
Some of Oyeleye’s immediate challenges in his tenure include the issue of fuel subsidy, which the outgoing government has deftly passed on to the next administration.
“If we want to avoid bankruptcy as a country, we have no two options, the subsidy has to go immediately, I believe that the method of removal should have been decided by the incoming president now, and once he takes office, he should implement the plans.
The DAWN DG suggested removing the subsidy by 25 per cent every six months starting from July, which means it should start once the budgeted amount for the subsidy is exhausted by the end of June. It is neither here nor there that we should wait for our refineries to work.
He urged the president-elect to immediately reverse multiple exchange rate policies that he described as massively encouraging foreign investment.
„Third, our revenue base is so low that he must be willing to increase our revenue, which will make our debt to revenue ratio sustainable; I am emphasizing here widening the tax net, not necessarily increasing taxes. If everyone who is eligible to pay taxes is contributing, then in the current budget „I believe we will not worry too much at the current level which warns that it is bordering on unsustainable,” he said.
He also said Tinubu should be ready to give more powers to stabilize the state economically.
A retired military intelligence officer, Captain David Mbamara, said the president-elect is expected to properly investigate the injustices in the South-East region with a determination to correct them.
According to him, “We cannot completely cover one-fourth of the country. The truth is that today the Southeast is technically locked. I dare say Lagos can never be decongested without a deliberate and serious effort to develop the South East.
„In the South East and in Nigeria we cannot talk about security when a quarter of the population is unemployed. It is either we are in Nigeria or we are not. It is time we rise above ethnic sentiment and face the Nigerian project.
He urged Tinubu to answer the Igbo question in Nigeria. „The incoming government cannot want the Igbo forces to leave like previous administrations.”
A human rights activist, Achuke Chute, warned Nigerians not to expect anything from Tinubu without examining the key points of his promises to Nigerians in 2015. .
According to him, “Since the Buhari administration has not achieved any of those promises of 2015, we see what is happening in the country today in terms of the economic situation, the security situation and the level of corruption, the reality is that Nigeria is a reverse on all these fronts. These are the three basic things President Buhari promised us but today things are bad on all these fronts. This is why I don’t want to expect.
“The next president should also work at the level of unity in the country. We hope that those who politicized the country on behalf of the President-elect will realize that the election is over, that governance requires a different attitude, and that the campaign is over.
“I hope that responsible people who understand what it means to be accountable to the electorate will be appointed in his government, especially as his spokespersons.
„The worst mistake Dinupu makes is to surround himself with vindictive people.”
„Oddany rozwiązywacz problemów. Przyjazny hipsterom praktykant bekonu. Miłośnik kawy. Nieuleczalny introwertyk. Student.