This SAD, sad reality

Acronyms have always fascinated me.  Not least because they convey a long name in the shortest possible way, but also because some of them are witty and sometimes even downright humorous.  A recent acronym added to the Nigerian word-space is, in addition to these two attributes, also apt.  It is apt because it captures our […]

Acronyms have always fascinated me. 

Not least because they convey a long name in the shortest possible way, but also because some of them are witty and sometimes even downright humorous. 

A recent acronym added to the Nigerian word-space is, in addition to these two attributes, also apt. 

It is apt because it captures our general national mood today.

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And the word is SAD, an acronym for Special Advisor to a political office holder.  

But it’s just perfect, because majority of Nigerians today are sad. The situation around the country leaves us with little choice not to be. 

We are sad, not just because our brand-new president issued us a divorce letter, the very day our traditional honeymoon with him was supposed to commence, but because the steps he has taken since that infamous Freudian slip, in his inaugural address, have done nothing to alleviate the pain of that divorce.  

Yet he keeps acquiring more advisers. What are these advisers for, if they can’t make one feel the pulse of the people? 

I mean after the harrowing eight years of the last administration, Nigerians were hopeful that a new government would mean more kind consideration and sensitivity to their daily needs. 

And having elected someone who was with us all through, and had seen the disappointment and despair we had endure, because the Buhari government had failed to fulfill numerous campaign promises, the least we hoped for was that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will be more responsive to our needs and yearnings. 

It was more than a kick below-the-belt when the new president started with a move that was guaranteed to affect every living Nigerian; except for political office holders. 

We all know that everyone feels the pain of petrol price increase, including people in our remotest villages, because even they have to transport their farm produce to nearby markets. 

Though Nigerians had questioned late Umaru ‘Yar’adua’s electoral victory in 2007, not least because he was former president Obasanjo’s hand-picked and annointed successor, he was able to turn that negative perception around, when he quickly brought down the cost of petrol from N75 to N65 naira per litre, in the early days of his administration. 

It wasn’t even part of his campaign promise but as someone who pledged to be a servant-leader, both in words and in deeds, President ‘Yar’adua felt the pulse of the nation; and acted accordingly.  

Former President Buhari and his team were a different breed though. They promised much and delivered little. In fact so little that before the government expired, a common joke on social media, is that of Nigerians begging Buhari to return them to where he met them in 2015. 

The joke says ‘We no longer want your change. Take us back to 2015 when a bag of rice was N8500, a litre of petrol was 87 naira, when our naira was 120 to the dollar, when bandits were criminals hiding in Zamfara and Birnin Gwari forests, not armed gangs raiding whole towns and villages, while killing and abducting people at will….’ 

This obviously sums up the disappointment of Nigerians with the Buhari government. 

In fact among the topmost indices of failed campaign promises was that they promised to end corruption by naming, shaming, prosecuting and jailing corrupt public officials. Not only did the government fail to do much in this regard, but it also bred its own high-level corrupt officials, who made the previous corruption cases pale in comparison.  

It is with this obvious pain and expectation that we welcomed the Tinubu administration. But so far we haven’t seen much to celebrate.  

Poverty and hunger have exacerbated. Though we were supposed to have created rice pyramids, rice has become a rare sight for the common man.  

Yet, in the face of all this, the new administration seems more keen on creating the needless offices of special advisers and special assistants than in tackling the nation’s woes head-on. 

Of what use is this retinue of aides when the rest of our compatriots are wallowing in hunger and pain? 

Even the Vice-President has no less than twenty aides. This is one office whose occupant is, like his state counterpart, only a spare tyre. 

He cannot be the front wheel unless his principal is unavoidably absent. 

So why does the VP need over a dozen aides when two or three will do? 

Unless our leaders learn to prioritise what their compatriots’ need, they will never achieve the success they claim they want to achieve. 

These SADs and SAs must be reduced to the barest minimum because they are just a huge addition to the nations wage-bill with little to add in terms of real value to governance.  

Some may say that this is the practice in most parts of the world, especailly where the presidential system is in practice; and maybe it is true, but who said we can’t change it to suit our present peculiar circumstances? 

The late John Magufuli of Tanzania went as far as to cancel his country’s national day celebrations, in his first year in office, because the money budgetted was needed for something else. He diverted the amount to rehabilitation and equipping of government-owned hospitals around the country.  

In our present state now, we need such radical measures to ease the situation of suffering all over Nigeria. 

Presidential platitudes and doubtful palliatives cannot end the hardship being encountered by ordinary Nigerians, since before the removal of fuel subsidy and after it. 

But decisive actions like immediately returning the subsidy, securing our borders so seriously that the fuel doesn’t end up smuggled, and cutting down the cost of a litre to no more than 200 naira will certainly do the magic, in the short term. 

In the long term, we must embark on an immediate repair and maintenance of our refineries, so that fuel importation will no longer be necessary in Nigeria.  

The other day I saw a list of petroleum exporting countries and Nigeria is the ONLY ONE without a functioning refinery.  

Needless to say, this is a great shame indeed. But President Bola Tinubu is in a position to do things differently. 

He can achieve this by mustering the will to do what is right and promptly too. This will not be attainable by appointing more SADs, who will only be additional drain on our national resources.

The reality of our sad situation is that we need a sensitive, responsive and caring government that will put the people’s needs first, then any political expediency second or third.