Tinubu boasts of having given State Governors more revenue to spend. However, the economy has shrunk to less than half its size in 2015 and even less than what it was in 2023 when Tinubu took over. The salient question is, where is the increased revenue coming from? They will tell you that it comes from removal of fuel subsidy and more taxes. Of course, the printing of money continues.
What that means in effect is that Tinubu is squeezing life out of the Nigerian people to fund the profligacy of politicians. There is no reasonable person that will not query a situation where the economy shrinks but Government revenue balloons. It is incongruous. The incongruity is what manifests in the over 300% devaluation of the Naira. It is the deliberate impoverishment of the Nigerian people to enrich politicians.
In this Tinubu Government, it is easier for the rich to earn a billion Naira than for the poor to earn ten thousand Naira. Tinubu simply built a pipe from the pockets of the poor people of this country into that of politicians.
This is not unintended results of a policy that was not well thought out. It is deliberate. Tinubu desires a group conspiracy with politicians against the people. What Tinubu calls tough decisions is nothing other than class protectionism of the elite political class against the people. He believes that the politicians will naturally float to him as they continue to receive more money as against the deepening poverty in the land. Every politician or top bureaucrat in all the branches of Government, including the judiciary, would, with time, begin to see their privileged position vis a vis the rest of the people and would loath any ruffling of the feathers that could remove them from it.
Tinubu believes that, on the other hand, the people will never matter and will never do anything to throw away their yoke because they can always be manipulated and divided with ethnic sentiments.
We have never before witnessed such deviousness in politics and policy formulation.
By Chuks Nwachuku; legal practitioner and leadership and good governance advocate; [email protected]
