By Steve Osuji in EXPRESSO_PRESIDENCYWatch
A SPARK OF TINUBU LIGHT: Upfront: this column had long given up on President Bola Tinubu. Expresso had long determined that nothing of much value will be achieved by his administration even if he ruled for 50 years. The weekly presidency watch was disabled by the sheer ineptitude of the presidency. We found ourselves repeating same negativism arising from poor leadership; we searched in vain to find something worthy of commendation; just anything. Nothing. The Tinubu presidency kept flailing and failing.
Even the much hullabalooed cabinet reshuffle was as anticlimactic as a case of premature ejaculation. This column foresaw that and was never expectant (more on the reshuffle later).
So what’s this spark of light from Tinubu? There was a bit of difficulty recharging the satellite tv subscription so one was incommoded to watching the news on our super-boring, free-to-air Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) last Thursday. There he was, our president working on his new brainwave, the newly created Ministry of Livestock Development.
The occasion was a Stakeholders Consultative Workshop on Livestock Reforms in Nigeria, hosted at the State House, Presidential Villa, Abuja.
For once since his inauguration, indeed, for once in a long while, one saw Tinubu make sense in an address. Remember he’s become a master of mish-mash in recent years being aged and ailing. The one who gave us the ultimate presidential gibberish: balablu, blu blu and bulaba (this will yet get into the dictionary of new words).
LIVESTOCK REFORM TO THE RESCUE? And there he was, addressing the agric audience, charging them on the vision of the livestock reform and admonishing them as to why in all the cattle rearing we are engaged in, we still spend about (N?)1.5 billion daily on import of food; he wondered why we didn’t see the inherent investment opportunities like the cold rooms and why a country of over 200 million people with vast land mass cannot serve our children one pint of milk per day in the classroom.
He promised to give it all it takes to bring value to our (livestock) economy. This is quite profound, if you know.
Expresso has determined that Tinubu’s setting up of Livestock Committee in July to review this critical sector of Nigeria’s economy is the most important action ( let’s call it reform, they love the word) he has taken so far in his presidency.
Making Prof Attahiru Jega, a man of notable integrity and competence, the co-chairman is a masterstroke. Global market value of farmed animals is about $3 trillion. Nigeria has the potential to bite a good chunk of it.
HITTIG AT THE SOUL OF NIGERIA’S INSECURITY: Though Nigeria’s livestock economy may pale beside her oil and gas but it’s far more important and strategic today for the following reasons. First, getting our livestock right would solve to a large extent, the insecurity problems in Nigeria. Huge, state-sponsored swathes of integrated ranches in states like Niger, Bornu , Kano, Katsina, Taraba and Plateau for instance, would be models in modern animal husbandry business. These would be privatised a couple of years down the line.
The ugly sight of cattle on our highways, inner cities, school grounds and farmlands would begin to reduce. Rustling, which is the fare of bandits would vastly diminish.
The livestock value chain is vast and pivotal. Two years down the line, a huge, revitalising impact would begin to refresh the economy. Jobs, veterinary inputs and personnel, transportation, cold room, beef, leather, dairy products, all these and more would immediately energise the economy.
TACKLING ACUTE MALNUTRITION WITH MILK: Milk production wouldn’t only save Nigeria billions of dollars in foreign exchange, it will immediately impact on millions of our infants dying of severe acute malnutrition (SAM) as the president alluded to. Currently, about two million infants in Northern Nigeria are suffering from SAM. Half of this (one million), happened in the last one year under Tinubu’s watch. So one pint of milk daily and other dairy products would effectively keep this malaise at bay.
You see why this column is elated for once since President Tinubu took office. This is the only project Tinubu has initiated so far that makes a bit of sense. If he succeeds with this, if by end of 2026, we have nary half a dozen integration ranches functional and running well, this column would forgive him everything.
For now, we are glad we finally found something to cheer after over one and half years of Tinubu’s regime.
Yes, we are not unmindful of the fact that all this could happen under the Livestock Department of the Ministry of Agriculture (if it weren’t comatose). We are not unmindful of the cheap political gains probably undergirding all this, yet we pray that the livestock master plan would succeed; would move swiftly from conference rooms and drawing boards to terra firma in a radical and revolutionary manner. Can Prof Jega pull this Tinubu chestnut out of the fire? It bloody tough work, but it’s not impossible.
CABINET RESHUFFLE: MOTIONING AND MOTIONING: The so-called rejig of his team by the President is yet another pointer that Tinubu has not an aorta of capacity to lead Nigeria today. What happened was mere motion without even one step forward.
Imagine dropping five ministers and adding on seven. And we are supposed to be cutting cost of governance. Imagine Tinubu still clinging to the petroleum portfolio. That’s like being on top of your spouse and doing nothing… like a deadweight! To think that oil and gas is the most important sector of the economy. Nothing has happened in Nigeria’s huge petroleum sector under Tinubu except deals; the most confounding of deals we ever knew.
The so-called new ministers are same of same. The president is still prioritising political settlements and ethnic considerations over competence and capacity.
He appears like a man enjoying the game of musical chairs; he’s not bothered by the strident shouts of hunger out there, he’s not making changes to deal with urgent issues facing the country. He has reshuffled his cabinet for the fun of it. Otherwise, the Economic team should be the first to go. Many of them are like fish out of water.
FEDERAL EXECUTIVE COUNCIL OF ODUA LAND: One won’t be surprised if FEC meetings are conducted in Yoruba language. That’s how illiterate things have become.
If one were Yoruba today, I would cover my face in shame. In trying to favour his clique, Tinubu has given Yoruba a bad name as untutored tribalists and arc-bigots. It’s so bad it stinks.
With this reshuffle, Tinubu has railroaded everything good in the federal cabinet to his cronies who happen to be Yoruba and worse, who happen to be largely incompetent.
Igbo is worst hit of course. Tinubu is unabashed in bashing and trampling Ndigbo. Igbo have progressed from Hurricane Buhari to Hurricane Tinubu. Inequity against Igbo has become a fun sport.
Even the crumbs handed to Igbo by way of Commerce and Industry Ministry was snatched and pressed down into the overflowing bag of Yoruba portfolios. The occupant, one of the few thinking heads in the cabinet, Doris Uzoka-Anite was demoted to a junior minister under Finance Ministry held by Yoruba. As my people would say, ‘nakwa echecki’.
UMAHI AS CRAZED BARTIMAEUS: The only portfolio ostensibly left for the entire Igbo out of about 50 is the Works Ministry. Held by Mr Dave Umahi, but it could just as well be taken that Igbo has nothing because Umahi presents as some sort of a Bartimaeus of the crazed kind. You know the story of the biblical blind Bartimaeus who hollers unrestrainedly until Jesus hears him and gives him back his sight…
The same way Umahi is a rabid proselyte of Tinubu. Umahi represents Tinubu and Tinubu alone. Not himself, not Igbo, not Nigerians, but Tinubu, big and small. He would seemingly do only Tinubu’s bidding and even the one he didn’t bid him. So Umahi is an advantage to the Tinubu clan and a loss to Ndigbo and Nigerians.
But the crux is that Tinubu didn’t set up a cabinet to lead Nigeria to Eldorado. The reshuffle, therefore, makes no difference to Nigeria and Nigerians.
LASTLINE: Another opportunity missed. Sad.
▪︎Osuji was editor at The Guardian, THISDAY and NewAge. He was also editorial board member at the The Nation.
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FEEDBACK: steve.osuji@gmail.com
OSUJISTEVE/28.10.24
