Menu

Why ‘T-Pain’ should be Tinubu's least worry 10 Nov 2024

The negative impacts of the economic reforms of President Bola Tinubu have been drawing various reactions. The earliest of the public reactions was the spectacle of people lining both sides of the road, last December, in Idumota area of Lagos Island, chanting “ebi n pa wa” at the convoy of the President as it drove past. The chant means “we are hungry”. This past August, a national protest – demanding an end to hunger in Nigeria – unusually gained the most traction in northern parts of the country.

Since the economic policies of the administration started to bite, many Nigerians have resorted to begging, cheating, selling off their prized assets, and criminal activities to survive or meet their obligations. Also, businesses have been shuttering, scaling back operations, and downsizing their manpower amid escalating costs and reduced transaction volumes.

The latest of the public reactions is the christening of Tinubu as “T-Pain”. The moniker is an unequivocal imputation of the cause of the deepening economic privation in the country to the President. He himself has acknowledged on numerous occasions, within just 17 months in office, that his policies are causing hardships. But he would quickly add that the pains are temporary and the gains in a distant horizon.

President Tinubu’s reactions to the feedback to his policies have been cold. He didn’t personally respond to the people chanting ‘ebi n pa wa’ at him, despite his close affinity with them. The August protests, in many cases, were met with heavy-handed responses by state security agents; many protesters were hauled into prison. His resentment at being called ‘T-Pain’ may be followed by something worse, as the public has been ‘warned’ to desist from the name-calling.

It is true that the administration has responded to the hardships through some official programmes. These include conditional cash transfers to some folks, programmatic price discount on rice, and episodic free distribution of the stapple food to ‘vulnerable’ citizens. But without a doubt, the President wants to wield the policy stick and the palliative carrot at will. His mind seems made up on his reform agenda and how to cushion its seriously harsh effects. Whether the reforms are working or not, and regardless of the inadequacy and ineffectiveness of the distribution of palliative measures, the administration is just carrying on, deepening policies that have already gone quite far in wrecking the economy and the lives of not a few Nigerians.

But rather than being upset by a moniker that aptly links his policies to the hardships that Nigerians are facing, Tinubu should be worried that the reactions have been shifting. As the policies are worsening inflation and unemployment – in particular youth unemployment – many commentators have voiced concerns that the country is sitting on a proverbial ‘keg of gunpower.’ As the government continues to stifle the expression of discontent through protests against its economic policies, many Nigerians fear that the ‘gunpower’ could explode without any further warning – possibly triggered by a spontaneous reaction.

Around the world, the most unstable societies are where the people are the most impoverished. We do not have to look beyond Nigeria for exemplification of the link between poverty and insecurity. The core northern regions of North West and North East are the poorest in the country. They are also the most insecure.

On a broader note, parts of these regions are located within the Sahel – a semi-arid zone that stretches across several countries in West and North Africa, which according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, is one of the poorest regions of the world. Over 80% of the Sahelian population lives in extreme poverty. Insecurity in the region has been linked to poverty, poor governance, inequality, and climate change, with the combined effect of rising civil conflict and violent extremism.

There is the notion that the rise in crime in Nigeria is revolutionary. The tide of crime is not just rising with increasing public maladministration and disappearing economic opportunities. The rising crime rates, in part, are a reaction to the maladies.  

The World Bank has linked high food inflation – at the levels including in Nigeria – to socio-political instability. Nevertheless, the global financier has persisted in advising the government to continue with its inflationary policies. How bad the situation is likely to get before the salutary long-term benefits of the policies would start to manifest is unclear. But it is imaginable how political instability can upset long-term economic projections, with low investor confidence in the economy shifting investments to more stable jurisdictions.    

There is preponderance of evidence that the World Bank and its sister institution, IMF, do not always uphold the policy knowledge they have. As both institutions are advising Nigerians to support what is clearly an economic authoritarianism of the government, IMF recently affirms: “Effective communication, civic engagement, and earning the public's trust are the keys to advance pro-growth reforms.” Perhaps because the current reforms are arguably anti-growth, the government has given little consideration for these reform prerequisites.

Rather than reforms that are decimating businesses and livelihoods for airy-fairy long-term gains, the government should switch to policies that would foster incremental economic progress for the people from today. It should align the welfare of the people with its policy choices. The desire of the citizens for a decent life and the policy decisions of the government cannot perpetually run on separate tracks.

Jide Akintunde is Managing Editor, Financial Nigeria publications. He is also Director, Nigeria Development and Finance Forum.