Iduh Onah
WE CERTAINLY have arrived at a critical point in our democracy when, as voters and conscious citizens that we must ask the very uncomfortable question: of the available presidential candidates, whose ideas have the greatest chance of rescuing the country from its present condition?
For me, that question has become increasingly difficult to answer with the name of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
After more than three years of his stewardship, I am not persuaded that Nigeria is being taken in the direction it desperately needs, notwithstanding the opinion of the IMF and World Bank, which are of the view that some of the administration’s reforms have improved selected macroeconomic indicators, created stronger reserves, and improved fiscal and external positions.
But we are not deceived by any analysis of these Bretton Woods institutions which have over the decades masterminded the underdevelopment of the third world to the current mess most of them are in.
Of course, an economy is not ultimately an abstraction called GDP, nor is economic success measured by what investors see on a spreadsheet. It is measured by whether a Nigerian family can eat, a graduate can find productive work, a farmer can safely reach his farm, whether a worker’s salary survives the month, or whether a child can learn in a functioning school or whether a small business can produce without being strangled by energy and logistics costs.
By those indicators, the Tinubu administration has a much weaker case on which to convince Nigerians to return him to power.
His economic philosophy, seemingly aimed at aggressive macroeconomic stabilisation, from day one, has been pursued at the expense of the social and economic wellbeing of the average Nigerian and far from any positive transformation.
Take, for instance, the removal of the petrol subsidy and the liberalisation of the foreign-exchange market, presented as necessary surgery, which he argued was a surgery necessary for Nigeria’s recovery.
But as it turned out, it is clearly a surgery carried out without careful diagnoses and therefore failed to take into cognisance of the post-surgery pains and requisite medication that naturally follow recovery.
These are the excruciating pains visible in households – high cost of food, transportation, rent, school fees and healthcare, etcetera. I am not, and I think there is basically no rational Nigerian who is persuaded by the administration’s argument that Nigerians should endure what is obviously infinite.
President Tinubu and his apostles are basking in the luxury the subsidies guaranteed by the offices they occupy, and therefore can tell us that the economic fundamentals of the administration’s neo-liberal policies are supposedly improving.
From all indications, the World Bank, the architect of these policies, is not even convinced as it stated that although macroeconomic stability has improved, growth remains insufficient to create enough productive employment or materially reduce poverty.
My disagreement with the Tinubu policies is both ideological and practical.
While I am not an economist with the ability to statistically breakdown economic indices, my lived experience, from the Shagari Presidency (when I was in secondary school) through General IBB’s years of Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) to OBJ/Atiku’s era when it was argued that ‘government has no business in business’ and packaged every public asset for sale and sought to totally deregulate the downstream petroleum sector, makes me sceptical of the dangers of a market economy paradigm, which treats price liberalisation, fiscal consolidation, exchange-rate flexibility and investor confidence as though they are ends in themselves.
They are dangerous essentially because in every economy where they had been enforced, the welfare of citizens and the productivity of the economy, historically, were always subordinated in favour of the forces behind the World Bank and IMF.
Agreed that Nigeria needs fiscal discipline, a functioning foreign-exchange market, an enterprising private sector and the need to eliminate waste and corruption. But it also needs an activist developmental state capable of building infrastructure, protecting vulnerable citizens, investing massively in human capital, stimulating productive industries and creating the conditions under which Nigerians can actually produce wealth.
The question should therefore not be market or government, rather, what combination of market dynamism and competent government will produce a more prosperous Nigerian society? That is one reason Peter Obi appeals to me, in the absence of a convincing progressive social democrat.
Obi’s central proposition of moving Nigeria from consumption to production strikes me as closer to the structural problem we actually face. His published policy agenda has emphasised production, human capital, infrastructure, industrialisation, security, institutional reform and investment in education and health, although he falls into the no-subsidy pit, which I think he will rethink in the face of the Tinubu disaster.
His emerging 2027 message has retained that emphasis, proposing greater agricultural productivity, agro-processing, manufacturing, technical education, infrastructure and disciplined public investment.
Of course, a manifesto is not a presidency. Obi must still demonstrate that his ambitious prescriptions can survive the realities of federal politics, entrenched interests, bureaucratic resistance, insecurity and Nigeria’s notoriously difficult political economy.
That is precisely why I find his argument more intellectually attractive: it begins from the proposition that Nigeria’s problem is fundamentally productive capacity.
We consume too much that we do not produce; import too much of what we could produce, and export too many raw materials and therefore capture too little value.
We have millions of young people but insufficient productive employment; enormous agricultural potential but insecure farming communities, and numerous universities but inadequate human-capital investment. That diagnosis deserves serious consideration.
My reservations about Atiku Abubakar are different. I cannot forget that Atiku was vice president from 1999 to 2007 and chaired the National Council on Privatisation during that period.
He was therefore a senior participant in the economic direction of the Obasanjo administration, including its vigorous privatisation and liberalisation programme.
It would be intellectually lazy to claim that Atiku single-handedly produced Nigeria’s subsequent economic problems, but a politician and a successful businessman who was at the centre of government during a major period of market-oriented reform cannot plausibly present himself as completely detached from the economic philosophy that shaped that era.
Atiku’s supporters can point to privatisation, telecommunications expansion, debt relief and periods of economic growth during the Obasanjo years.
Those ‘achievements’ deserve rigorous contextual interrogation to really explore whether they can be classified as ‘successful’, particularly in the telecom and energy sectors, vis-à-vis the prevailing insecurity in the country.
For me, therefore, the 2027 choice is not simply between Tinubu versus Atiku versus Obi. It is a choice about what kind of Nigerian state we desire.
Do we continue with an economic philosophy in which ordinary Nigerians are repeatedly told that today’s hardship is the necessary price of tomorrow’s prosperity? A prosperity that never comes anyway!
Do we return to politicians whose records are rooted in an earlier generation of liberalisation and privatisation, or do we take a chance on a political programme that puts production, human capital, infrastructure, enterprise and disciplined public investment at the centre?
In 2015, I chose Buhari because I though he held the promise. In 2023, I chose Tinubu hoping that his pro-democracy background placed him above the other choices. Clearly, our prevailing situation proves he is not the one.
Come 16 January 2027, I have made my choice. I intend to vote for Peter Obi not because I believe he is a messiah. Nigeria has had enough of messianic politics.
It is not because I believe everything that he says is automatically correct; it isn’t, and certainly not because Nigerians who disagree with me are foolish or disloyal.
I will vote for Obi because, among the choices before me, I currently find his diagnosis of Nigeria’s structural problems and his emphasis on production and human capital more convincing than the alternatives.
My vote is not a blank cheque. If Obi gets the opportunity to govern, I will judge him by the same merciless standards I apply to Tinubu: security, jobs, wages, schools, healthcare, infrastructure, productivity, fiscal responsibility and the living conditions of ordinary Nigerians.
That, ultimately, is what democracy should mean! Not worshipping politicians nor defending parties; not voting because somebody shares our ethnicity, religion or regional identity. Voting is the periodic audit of political power.
In 2027, my audit will produce a vote for Peter Obi. The rest is for Nigerians to decide.
Onah is the Editor-in-Chief of NATIONAL RECORD and writes this column every Wednesday. Send reactions via email to: nationalrecordng@gmail.com, onahiduh@yahoo.co.uk.
