There is something amateurish about every new democratic government. Its people may be professional politicians, but hardly professional governors. They may have stepped up directly from the governorship at a sub-national setting into governorship at the national level. Still, they would be amateurs at the new level. Though their engagement isn’t a pastime, they are not into it for monetary gains (at least in principle). And their tenor is rather short.
But sometimes, situations are so dire that nations would almost need downright professionals in government, not amateurs that have the luxury of time and trial and error. Nigeria was one such country after the disaster that was the Buhari government in every way.
Then came Bola Tinubu, however contentious his entry was. Having tested and perfected his electoral strategy with Buhari over two terms, one thought he was perfectly prepared for governance. He personally announced he would hit the ground running. It didn’t turn out so.
With a side remark, he removed the petroleum subsidy. In so doing, he got his government a fiscal breather, but apparently didn’t know he threw the people under the bus by same move. It took weeks before his government began thinking about possible palliatives for the people. They are still trying to work that out, eight months running, while the people are being ground into dust. A lady banker has just been reported to have committed suicide, blaming the hard times. A couple have jumped into the waters from the Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos, and many others brought down the curtains right in their homes. More will still end it by themselves, while the grim reaper has to come do its work, harvesting a lot more by hunger.
President Bola Tinubu reserves the right to make or change the direction of his government, irrespective of the fact that he took the baton from a fellow party man, Buhari, in a party he practically owns, the All Progressives Congress (APC). He has the right to tweak with institutions and personnel, but how he does it is what matters.
The epiphany of Tinubu’s presidency has been signposted by disruptions of the negative kind, which even the blind could see. If it were just good people that got pushed out, one could say that in a country of some 220 million people, there must be competent replacements for every personnel in government. But when institutions that form the bulwark of democracy are destroyed, how does the nation move on?
The declaration of Tinubu as president-elect elicited joy in a few, but bewilderment in most who cared for democracy. The twists and turns of the electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) since then, has rendered the institution dead in the minds of many Nigerians. The open corruption of the institution in the 2023 election has killed this critical institution in the minds of Nigerians.
Next was the judiciary, which has been delivering strange judgements in the election petitions. Right from the lower to the highest courts, the courts have been delivering what most Nigerians see as a-la-carte judgements. That has left the judiciary comatose.
Then there is the matter of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which has become the object of ridicule. Less than a fortnight after being sworn in, President Tinubu suspended Godwin Emefiele as the CBN governor. Though a tenured position, Tinubu acted within the limits of his rights as president, suspending the governor. Within recent memory, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi was suspended and removed as CBN governor by President Goodluck Jonathan. And Chukwuma Soludo whose tenor was regarded as the golden age of banking in Nigeria, was quietly laid aside by President Umaru Yar’Ádua who refused to renew his tenor.
What stands out in the case of Emefiele is the seeming intent of President Tinubu to do him in. In what has unnecessarily turned out to be Tinubu vs Emefiele, the erstwhile CBN governor was immediately arrested and clamped into detention by the Department of State Security (DSS), not minding an extant court order that forbade his arrest or detention. About half a dozen more court orders were procured by Emefiele for his release, but the DSS was adamant.
More ridiculous is the way and manner that Emefiele has been put to trial in the court and the trial by media that he has been subjected to.
First, there was a media leak that Emefiele was a sponsor of terrorism; that a cache of arms was found in his custody. But when he was later charged, the charge turned out to be in possession of a single firearm. There was no mention of terrorism.
Next, there was another press leak that Emefiele would face some two dozen charges of corruption regarding his tenor. The promised day came and Emefiele was taken to court, but his advertised partner in crime, a colleague at the CBN, was not made available in court. An unusually benevolent DSS said that she took ill and couldn’t make the court. Emefiele was not charged in court that day, but taken back into detention.
When the DSS got tired of this ‘customer’ they released him only for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to pick him up and continue the detention. Meanwhile, figures kept dropping as to the alleged malfeasance perpetrated by or under Emefiele, ranging from N7trn to N26.6trn. Yet, the government agencies handling these matters could never summon the courage to charge Emefiele to court on these charges. A lot of these leaks were attributed to the Jim Obazee, the special investigator that President Tinubu commissioned to probe the CBN under Emefiele.
Obazee submitted the report on his findings since early December, but it is yet to be made public. Yet the press leaks continue.
Finally, Emefiele was released on bail just before Christmas, after some 200 days in detention.
Wouldn’t it have been noble for the DSS to have held Emefiele’s passport to prevent flight while the government prepares its case against the man? Detaining the man as long as it has done, would tend to sway public sympathy in favour of the man. Wasn’t the government aware of that? Did it not occur to the government that orchestrating these rumours about Emefiele without proof that it could take to court, puts it under suspicion, indeed casts it as desperate to nail an apparently innocent suspect?
Does it also strike the government that on running down Emefiele as it has done, it is doing incalculable damage to the office of the CBN governor? As our people say, the stick used in beating the first wife is there awaiting the younger wives.
The Federal Government appears really amateurish in this Emefiele matter and should adjust its skirt and sit right.
Ojukwu-Enendu, media consultant and former Editor of BusinessDay Newspaper, writes from Lagos.
