Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, the first African-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.
Dr. Chidi Amuta is Executive Editor of USAfrica, since 1993
Politics is in many ways like religion. It thrives on a foolish expectation of paradise perennially approaching but forever elusive. Take away the promise and prospect of eventual heaven and paradise and all religion falls flat. You dare not tell a devotee that heaven may not come or that the promised virgins may not be delivered as promised!
Politicians on their part are the eternal purveyors of an earthly paradise. The promised land of every political manifesto is a sort of fulfilled state, an ideal of the nation state only imagined by John Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. It is a place where all the yearnings, desires wishes and needs of the ideal citizenry are met by an ever compassionate state ruled by good men and women. That is why every political realm quickly finds a slogan for its own definition of heaven on earth. Every active party man or woman is somehow an apostle of a new faith carrying the pocket book of a new theology, ready to recite you the catechism of the new Jerusalem.
The arrival time of a political paradise used to be long. It is now shorter because the electorate have become inpatient in a digital sense. People now want the fulfillment of political promises in real time which means almost instantly. Forget the election cycle. Forget the generational vision and legacy crap. Bring us the goodies now now! Palliative rice and Indomie Noodles for all now. Helicopter cash transfers for millions right away. Money for one good pot of soup for today in exchange for our votes today. Keep your highways and flyovers for later. Give us ‘stomach infrastructure’ now now!.
Even religious paradise has shortened its delivery and expectation time. Paradise is no longer only for the patient. Now, new generation pastors and transactional gospellers fast track things somehow. Prosperity and abundance of wealth must come now now! The microwave has entered the world of miracles and divine expectations. Youtube gathers the flock in one place at the push of a button on the keyboard and spreads the gospel worldwide while those at the receiving end just click and collect in millions of dollars. Instant salvation. Immediate paradise and gratification delivered via your bank account!
In today’s Nigeria, President Tinubu and his APC friends are the merchants of the new wonder product called the “Renewed Hope Agenda”. It is the hope of an abundance of life and goodness to be delivered by the Tinubu government in the fullness of its time. We are told that the “Renewed Hope” Franchise belongs to the APC as a party. But the party manifesto makes no mention of this ‘renewed hope’ agenda. We are not told what it is. No one has yet unwrapped the package. Party people and regime friends just talk glibly about it. At other times, the ‘renewed hope’ is merely suggested in shy chants when the President is likely to be present. At such occasions, ‘renewed hope’ agenda spontaneously graduates into a song directed at the President: “On your mandate we shall stand…!” Once the President departs the venue, the chant is over, the choir dissolves and disperses into the anonymity of the rented crowd of political jobbers .
When you ask the lead choristers the content of the ‘renewed hope’ they just sang about, you are left empty-handed. No one seems to know what it is all about but everyone is expected to expect it! You ask endlessly from the marketers of the new gospel to be told what this ‘renewed hope’ is all about. There is no document that describes it or itemizes what we as an electorate should expect from this ‘renewed hope’ thing. We are just expected to believe and trudge along. A theology without a creed. Faith in things unseen and unknown!
Every respectable gospel builds an attractive paradise for its followers to aspire to: a garden of respite from our earthly toils, a place where there is no more sorrow, toil or even death. Every common person shall summon enough courage to look death in the face and ask: “Death, where is thy sting?” Believers shall play and enjoy endlessly. Political utopias are similarly constructed as a combination of imagination and the wishful thinking of hapless voters. Since we are supposed to look forward to the arrival of “renewed hope” as a political utopia and kingdom, one should expect to learn its outlines. How many poor housing units will be delivered per state by ‘renewed hope’? How many new classrooms? How many new health centres? How many free bus rides to and from work? Will there be free food at feeding centres? Will public schools be free of charge for the poor? Will bandits disappear from our highways? Will there be special prisons for kidnappers? Just what goodness will descend on us all courtesy of the “Renewed Hope Agenda?” Mr. “Renewed Hope”, when shall be taste the next good soup?
In the absence of any of these concrete ‘better life’ prospects, to just promise us ‘renewed hope’ as a source of universal sweetness is somewhat suspicious and even fraudulent. Hope is not a place of succor. Hope is not a policy. It is not measurable Hope is not a destination of goodness nor is it a policy. Hope is a never never land, an empty longing for things unseen and untouchable. Hope is a dream, a promise, a delusion of emptiness to feed the minds of the ignorant and foolish mob.
Every serious APC follower is now a “Renewed Hope Agenda” disciple and marketer.. The prime pontiffs are very loquacious, enviable and considerably wealthy citizens placed in strategic gate -keeper locations in the present order. Mr. Godswill Akpabio is Senate President with one of the longest convoys around. Mr. Nyesom Wike is Minister of the Federal Capital Territory with a fleet of demolition bulldozers at his beck and call. Mr. Dave Umahi is Minister of Works with Alaskan highway projects that literally traverse the entire length of the country. My former friend Dele Alake has been catapulted from near destitute joblessness to Minister of Solid Minerals negotiating mining rights with Chinese mineral thieves and bandits all over the country. A man who looks permanently surprised and always clad in oversize suits in Minister of Finance. In turn, Mr. Nuhu Ribadu is National Security Adviser who seems lately to be jostling for the job of minister of information by constantly singing the praise of the president at every stop. He was recently quoted as advocating national prayers to help chase away squads of bandits tormenting him and his men in waves of insecurity.
The better informed apostles of “Renewed Hope” have enough common sense to direct you to the policies of the Tinubu administration. We are told that the hardship spinoffs of the present policies are the vehicles of the “Renewed Hope Agenda”. The higher fuel prices, the astronomical exchange rates, the endless multiple taxes, the bandits and killers at every road junction and the high costs of basic food and sustenance items are meant to prepare us for life in the land of renewed hope. The few Nigerians who survive these hard times will be the ‘strong breed’ that will inhabit the place of ‘renewed hop’.
There may even be a religious angle to it all. Maybe after this period of famine and suffering shall follow a season of endless plenty! By a flip of divine intervention, all these agonies and suffering shall somehow end in praise. This may be the reason why recently, there was a rumoured plan to hold a nationwide prayer festival for divine intervention to alleviate the suffering in the land and turn it all into plenty, abundance and praise.
No one can say convincingly that the president does not love Nigeria. He is working on the job he applied for. While we cannot deny the prevalence of hardship all over the land, there is also a need to acknowledge that this government has been quite busy doing the ordinary things that governments in these parts do.
Meetings are being held in Abuja every day on virtually every subject under the sun. The President has been setting up committees of all hues to seek for solutions to our economic problems as they rear their heads. The big men and women of officialdom are perennially on the move in and around the country attending to busy schedules, arriving in very large shiny black SUVs carrying the same files that their predecessors clutched before they were recently sacked. The communiqués summarizing the results of the meetings are sometimes issued before the meetings take place!
Undeniably, some things have been achieved under this ‘ “Renewed Hope Agenda’ regime. We have reverted to the 1960 national anthem from the new one. We even got the entire National Assembly to convert into a choir that learnt and sang the old “new” anthem with microwave speed. The president has acquired a fresh ‘tokunbo’ luxury jet for his many trips abroad. In less than 18 months into his tenure, President Tinubu has thrown out half a dozen of his lack lustre ministers and replaced them with another seven anonymous and even invisible ones. Hardly any day passes without the presidency announcing fresh high profile appointments by the president predictably from mostly one corner of the country.
In less than 18 months in office, this president has clocked more air miles than his predecessors even in the absence of a definite foreign policy direction.
On matters of hardship, the government has made noises in the direction of alleviating high food prices. Bags of rice and other grains have been ferried around the country to alleviate hunger but the masses still deny that they saw any rice. A few ministers and government big people have since set up rice warehouses and shops which are now doing lucrative business.
In some rice and palliative distribution centres, those who went out to scramble for rice and noodles to feed their families have ended up returning in body bags. The lucky ones returned with broken skulls from the scramble only to be told by the First Aid hospitals that basic medications are “out of stock”. Wise people no longer troop out to scramble for palliative rice or cash from big men. Please avoid dangerous rice and bad cash!
A plan to import food items at reduced tariffs is expected to begin yielding fruits soon. But the exchange rate of the Naira to the dollar to pay for the food import has worsened since the policy was announced. Worse still, the Central Bsnk has since jacked up interest rates so high that those who borrowed money to import low duty food items to fight hunger are themselves held to ransom by the banks. As a result, the envisaged relief of the imported food will be wiped off by the exchange rate and high interest rates.
In the interim, hapless and impoverished citizens are being constantly enjoined to await the coming of the Tinubu “Renewed Hope” kingdom.
In recent weeks, APC pundits and chieftains have been trumpeting that things are getting better. For them, the ‘renewed hope’ agenda has begun to yield fruits. Tinubu is now “performing” even in the absence of any supporting data. Tinubu is just happening in spite of worsening inflation, more depressing living costs and worsening insecurity.
While the chosen few of the APC high priesthood are wallowing in opulent excess, the chorus out on the streets in all parts of the nation is a desperate cry of anguish . People are asking when and how the nation can get out of the present excruciating hardship. “Renewed Hope Agenda” is fast turning into an anthem of paradise for a few chosen apostles and a dirge or requiem for the majority. Yet the dominant discourse and question out on the streets is an open question: when will the economy improve?
In politics, the approach of good times is signaled by the approach of the next election. As we inch towards 2027, there is bound to be an increase in the number of APC party faithful chanting the success of Tinubu’s policies. A great deal of these chants are based on political impulse rather than verifiable indicators in reality. Tinubu came to power with petrol pump price at less than N200. Renewed Hope agenda has hiked it to over N1,000. The Naira was exchanging for less than N500 to the dollar when Tinubu was sworn in last May. It is now hovering at over N1,700. Same degree of astronomical increases apply to electricity tariff, the cost of every food item, basic drugs, cost of ground transportation, domestic and international air fares.
Something new crept in from the recent campaigns of the American presidential election. Let us call it the Optimism Index. Simply put, it measures the degree to which the citizenry are optimistic that the nation is going in the right direction. Throughout the length and breadth of the country, you hardly encounter any one who is ready to risk asserting that any aspect of life in today’s Nigeria is going in the right direction. The readiest response of people to government is a torrent of curses and abuses. It has become so bad that important traditional rulers ands religious leaders have appealed to citizens to stop cursing the nation’s leaders. The Ooni of Ife a fortnight ago appealed to citizens to desist from cursing our leaders. The Sultan of Sokoto followed the same pattern of appeal. Some religious leaders have sent out the same appeal.
We cannot content ourselves with either a sea of curses and abuses or a baseless insistence on progress with ‘renewed hope agenda’. Those interested in knowing when the economy will improve need to take a closer look at what has befallen us in just a little over a year of this ‘renewed hope’ administration. In principle, a reform policy is all well and good. No serious country can go on the way we have been. You could not sustain an economy on subsidies in most important sectors. But at the same time, no sensible government can afford to take off all of subsidies in so many diverse areas of essential goods and services simultaneously. To take off all subsidies at once and increase taxes, rates, tariffs and charges on everything essential at once is like declaring a war on all the people. If they cannot protest and revolt, they will live a life of perennial curses on those who rule them.
I do not belong among those who insist that the “Renewed Hope Agenda” cannot and will not yid recovery and goodness. But our present hardship did not come as a result of divine punishment. It is man made. It is the result of a reckless combination of thoughtless reflexes mistaken for policies. Any group of people who casually inflict this untidy cocktail of harsh measures on the same people within such a short space of time in the name of governance need to have their identity and sanity double checked.
Maybe, INEC should incorporate comprehensive mental health screening as part of the qualification for electoral offices.
