By Steve Osuji
You would probably say, who cares if the ruling APC is reduced to the size of a corner pub. But it matters if you love the country. It matters a lot if you are troubled by the mess Nigeria has become at the moment. And the point is that if the All Progressives Congress had remained intact as it was in the Buhari era, the presidency would not have been the raggedly shop it is today.
But before our eyes, President Bola Tinubu literally cannibalised the APC immediately upon his ascendancy reducing the party to his puny, stunted size.
The APC of the Muhammadu Buhari era had men of experience, high learning and stature. You will tell a great president or leader by the size of the men around him; by the quality of his cabinet. Do a cursory check from the Obasanjo days in 1999 through Yar'Adua, Jonathan, to date - Tinubu's cabinet is simply the weakest and the most unremarkable by far.
Consider the line up of some of the men in Buhari's time: Yemi Osinbajo, Kayode Fayemi, Babatunde Fashola, Bukola Saraki, Ahmed Lawan, El Rufai, Rauf Aregbesola, Chris Ngige, Rotimi Amaechi, Odigie Oyegun, late Ogbonnaya Onu, Geoffrey Onyeama, Adeniyi Adebayo, Uche Ogah, Osagie Ehanire, Femi Ojodu, Adeleke Mamora, Sulu Gambari, Abba Kyari, Abdullahi Adamu, to name a few.
There's no suggestion here that these men of the old guards must be recycled. No.
We are suggesting that after a fractious presidential primary, after a period of ruffling of feathers, a statesman-president would reconcile the dissenting voices and unite the house. We are saying that some of these men should have been in a kitchen cabinet of sorts, they ought to have been the stanchion upon which the new administration sits.
But Tinubu dispersed this solid core and today, he's the only cock crowing in the ruling party.
Beyond party members, we are saying that a leader who wants to make impact must go out of his way to build a cabinet of first eleven men and women to be found in the land and beyond.
Parochial as Buhari was touted to be, he didn't only manage to get the best minds in the APC fold, but he reached beyond the party to source technocrats like Ogah, Enelama, Onyeama, Gambari and Ehanire.
As it stands, from hindsight, Tinubu is the parochial one. Far more small-minded than Buhari.
A president's cabinet reflects not just the size of his mind but more especially, the size of his vision for his country. Tinubu didn't select men and women of capacity and excellence to help develop Nigeria, no. He picked a team that would pander to his small ego; a team of people that cannot look him in the face. In fact, a team of his handy men who would always break into a song about his bogus mandate each time they manage to see him.
The game, therefore, is that you don't have to lead any thought or deliver on any task. Just be very voluble in singing a lullaby to the president each time he emerges and your job is secured.
A crippling narrowness of mind
Tinubu's pinhole vision and narrow mind are exemplified in the preference for his office boys of yore for crucial national assignments of today. Men who weren't outstanding serving as commissioners in his time as a state governor are today handed critical federal appointments far beyond their ken.
Reaching further, he picked mostly members of his Yoruba ethnic group, most of them inept, and altogether, handed them over 70 percent of the top jobs in the land.
Today, we see Tinubu's bean-counters, piggy-bank managers and tax collectors sitting in such pristine positions as Finance Minister and driver of the economy. We see the Exchequer being manned by a high street banker who doesn't quite grasp the dynamics of finance, banking and socio-economic interplay.
For instance, a great economic mind in the cabinet would have immediately reworked Tinubu's fuel subsidy faux pas. That was a grievous error that should have been corrected.
He would have drilled it into the President's head that the twin policies of yanking off petrol subsidy and floating the naira at a go are stupid to say the least. A strong economic mind would have advised the president that the adjunct of a floating naira is an aggressive export base. To float your currency while having nothing to sell is like barring your buttocks for the world markets to whip freely.
In other words, there's nobody in Tinubu's cabinet to advise him to go easy on subsidy and the currency. Today, the twain of these policies are the President's albatrosses.
Of course, a thoroughbred finance minister would never allow the budget to overlap year on year. He would rather resign than have entire capital budgets handed to one contractor: A foreigner who got the biggest jobs in the land without a bid!
This column shouted itself hoarse about Wale Edun being incapable of running Nigeria's economy. Nobody listened. He had to be fired three years later after he had shovelled 60 million compatriots into the dungeon of poverty. Edun is of course, already annotated by history as the worst Finance Minister Nigeria ever had!
Tinubu also neglected to pick a rounded jurist grounded in matters of the bar, bench and the philosophy of jurisprudence, to lead his most important cabinet space. While Lateef Fagbemi is a wily advocate and a courtroom fox, the Office of the Attorney General is the beacon and guiding post of modern democracy; especially so, a fledgling state as Nigeria. More especially so, to serve as light for a dim-minded president.
The office calls for one with copious intellectual reservoirs; a one-man think-tank of sorts for the country. Fagbemi lacks such facilities. So what do we have: a carpenter of a president and a plumber of an AGF. Therefore, their tools of work are mainly hammers and plungers instead of the cerebrum.
First term of propaganda, lies and histrionics
Tinubu's primary undoing is running Nigeria the way he ran Lagos State. For eight years, he ran Lagos like a captured entity. He unleashed propaganda, make-believe, and 'gbajue' tactics - meaning that if you won't say 'aye' we call it on your behalf and move on without your vote.
Add to that, his ability to pick the pockets of the people through a myriad of taxes and levies, strip them to their pants and hand all the money to his friends.
In three years therefore, he has left the majority of Nigerians impoverished, ragged and hungry.
With his limited knowledge of economics, he has upended the system, he now stands Nigeria's economy on its head.
But the real tragedy is that he doesn't even understand the catastrophe he has invoked upon the country. And nobody around him dares to tell him!
Everyday his hollow propaganda team tells the people, most of whom are at "quarter to die" that the foreign reserve has grown to an unprecedented level.
The people, only half alive, would snigger: isn't that the fund he's squandering for his vacation and medical tourism in Europe and France?
They shake their heads as they wonder, why are we keeping money to import rice and milk powder? Why have our rice mills shut down under his watch? Why is the ministry of livestock comatose and unfunded? Where is the electricity he promised us? What is he going to promise us this time? And why should we believe him?
Why should we believe a man who has single-handedly installed about 30 of the 36 governorship candidates in the land?
Why should we believe a man running a one-man party?
LAST LINE: IS SOLUDO AMONG THE PROPHETS TOO?
Soludo's agonistes: Let's call it the Saul-on-David syndrome. It's an affliction which manifests with momentary fits of hateful bile, making one lose consciousness for a while.
This column has determined that the Anambra State governor, Chukwuma Soludo is afflicted by such a malady.
The malaise is well illustrated in the Holy bible (1Samuel starting from chapter 16).
To sum it up, Saul, the first monarch of Israel loses favour with the Lord. A new king is ordained by the heavenly hosts. The fledgling teen, known as David is introduced to the nation when he vanquishes Goliath who is terrorising the nation.
From battle to battle, David slays the enemies and Saul gets more jealous and distraught. He can't live with David's exploits anymore. All he wants is to destroy David, indeed, kill him. He abandons his throne in pursuit of David.
Prophet Samuel takes David to the convention of prophets where everyone speaks in tongues and prophesies.
King Samuel trails David there and he is arrested by the spirit whereupon he rends his garments, falls and begins to prophesy.
The whole nation of Israel is aghast and thus emerges the saying: "Is Saul among the prophets?"
It is a detailed and exhaustive tale of how naked hate and angst ruined a glorious monarchy.
Eventually Saul and his heritage were destroyed. It took the magnanimity of King David to try to restore what is left of Saul's descendants.
Back home, Soludo, the Anambra State governor is at it again. He has continued his envy-induced pursuit of Mr Peter Obi, the Presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC. The unprovoked and unwarranted attacks started in 2022 when Obi first got the presidential ticket of the Labour Party. Soludo, it seems, can't live with the fact of an Obi presidency.
But let's close by noting that Alaigbo, the land of Igbo people abhors traitors. It is also an abomination for a man to hunt down his brother unjustly. The refrain is: "Ala kugbu e kwa gi." May the land clobber you!
Soludo must take heed
...Steve Osuji a, renowned columnist, is former Editor of New Age and the Guardian. He is also a member of the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE). NNL.
