President Bola Ahmed Tinubu got some respite this week over the failure of his government in making life worth living for Nigerians.
His adviser on strategy and communications, Bayo Onanuga, stole the headlines either by design or by accident. If it was by design, then he has lived up to his billing in the service of his principal. And if by accident, then his principal will need more of such.
I wouldn’t automatically give it to Onanuga that it was his strategy that secured this outcome, as strategy isn’t his strongest point. Indeed, he often ends with his foot in his mouth when it concerns strategy. Recall the gaffe that laid him naked, when after the 2023 presidential election and the accompanying violence, he threatened an entire ethnic group that that would be the last time they would “interfere” in Lagos elections.
In the build-up to the purported nationwide protest against bad government billed for early August, Onanuga had tweeted that the protest was being organized by the supporters of Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of Labour Party in the 2023 presidential election, and the most visible opposition leader.
“REVEALED: Peter Obi’s supporters are the people planning mayhem in Nigeria: Obi should be held responsible for anarchy”, Onanuga tweeted.
I scanned the tweet to see a report of Obi inciting his supporters, wondering if it wasn’t the same man that urged his restive supporters not to hit the streets in public protest when he was denied an electoral victory which many thought was his. I didn’t see any such incitement. Onanuga just rambled round, impressing whoever cared about his ability to follow the social media posts of some fellows with funny names who had sympathy for Obi. So, it is all about some vicarious liability from these fellows to Obi.
Would Bayo Onanuga accept such transfered responsibility? Would he plead guilty for something done or thought by his wife or his son? And by the way, is public protest against a government illegal?
Without a doubt, Onanuga was trying to incite the security services which have operated above the law in this regime to arrest Peter Obi. And he threw in the name of Pat Utomi to keep him company and lessen the stress for his master.
In reaction to his thinly veiled plan, lovers of democracy belonging to persuasions besides Tinubu’s APC, descended on Onanuga. He so captured the headlines that Tinubu was a footnote this week. I guess the president would have sent him a thank you note. It pays him better to do his thing (whatever it is) quietly than face the angst of nearly 200 million Nigerians (excluding the sheltered few) every day. It’s pleasant for Onanuga to take the blame while he takes a rest.
But the rest can only be momentary. The site engineer must, in the final analysis, take the blame for every error of the labourer. And if the errors are much, the conclusion is that the engineer is no good, otherwise, he would have a competent team.
I’m not privy to Onanuga’s letter of appointment. But if it has anything to do with disemmination of factual information, his performance is awful. Onanuga has no respect for facts and takes great liberty with economic concepts in the defence of his principal.
In the tweet where he accused Obi, Onanuga said that investors are coming back to our country. I wondered which country he was talking of, and which investors. By the way, it could be one of his ‘specialized’ uses of terms. Didn’t he say the other day, that ‘Portfolio investors have streamed in as long-term investors?’
To Onanuga, the exit of a major brand like Diageo, owners of Guinness from Nigeria was no big deal. After all, it got a buyer, Tolaram, from Singapore. In any case, Diageo was “merely following the business practice it has executed in Cameroon and Ethiopia”.
That’s all that he would want Nigerians to believe. Would Diageo leave Cameroon and Ethiopia if those countries were turning in profit for them? Onanuga wouldn’t want Nigerians to know that the awful business environment created by his party and exacerbated by this very government has squeezed life out of the Guinness brand. Diageo made a loss after tax of N18 billion in 2023, equivalent to $28 million. In contrast, the company had made a profit of N9.5 billion, 10 years earlier in 2013, which was equivalent to $58 million.
Tolaram bought out Diageo for about $70 million, an amount that Diageo made from 18 months profit in another era in the same market. If Diageo were Onanuga’s family businesses, he would celebrate these outcomes, abi? And with three years left of this disastrous government, would he have stayed and sustained the losses or bail out if he could?
DIASPORA CHRONICLES: Big Mommy regains her groove in the US
Recall the film, ‘How Stella got her groove back,’ with Whoopi Goldberg leading. Stella had just ended a relationship and was downcast. A friend suggested a holiday, and off they moved to Jamaica, where practically everyone welcomed them. While there in Jamaica, a younger man fell in love with Stella… and she got her groove back!
For Big Mommy, it wasn’t a search for love. It was a search for cash to meet needs. She had seen a bit of the glory days of Nigeria – schooled in Oyo State, in the best institutions, worked in Lagos and her native Edo. She earned good salaries with which she took care of her family. Without warning, the Nigerian economy started to slide, following the global economic meltdown of 2008. Jobs flew out the window.
It was so bad that Big Mommy found herself having to make do with a stipend of just N30,000 per month in 2014, not up to her lunch allowance a few years earlier. Something had to give.
She opted for emigration, unsure of when the tide would turn again in Nigeria. Providence was with her, and she got a US visa at first try.
By Christmas 2014, she was in the US and had no problem getting a job.
“Getting a job is no problem. You don’t need to have a godfather or know an MD to get a job”, she says, in obvious comparison to the situation back home. On her first job, she was paid about $400 per week. At the exchange rate then, her weekly pay was almost twice her monthly stipend in Nigeria.
On a monthly basis, her US job paid some 7.5 times her Nigerian stipend. And unlike Nigeria, your pay is guaranteed. “There is a 100 percent guarantee that you get paid, like the clock, when it’s time to get paid”, she says. That is one side of the story, though.
“The bills also come like the clock. It never fails when it is due. And if you don’t pay promptly, your utilities are cut off. And not much is left after the bills”.
But that is where maturity sets in. Big Mommy didn’t go to America to eat burger and ice cream. She knows how to squeeze and meet objectives. Together with siblings in UK, Norway and Germany, they fund some 97 percent of the budget of their paternal family, besides their individual families.
But do people at home know how tough it is for them?
“We have a lot of pressure from family and friends. Some demands are genuine, for absolute survival, and some are outrightly unreasonable. An example is someone making demands in order to pull her children from private school to public school. If you cannot afford to keep your children in private school, you don’t need a soothsayer to tell you what to do”.
All told, these 10 years of emigration have met the expectations of Big Mommy.
“Life here is reasonably predictable in terms of earnings, what to expect, when to expect it; and if you are organized and know what you are doing can plan accordingly. No sudden, unexpected or unpleasant surprises in terms of day to day living or what to expect at the stores”.
In one word, the US offers her stability. But she misses Nigerian food, and would visit Nigeria as soon as she can. Nigeria is now a destination she would be visiting,as she has become an American citizen.
“The highpoint of my emigration was pledging allegiance to my new country and becoming a citizen of the country. I can finally put aside my Nigerian passport to be used only when I need to come to Nigeria”.
