By Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo
In his reaction to the #EndHunger and the #EndBadGovernance protests, President Bola Tinubu ignored the demands of the protesters and the suffering of the people of Nigeria and merely repeated the talking points of his government in the last 14 months.
He did not provide any immediate solution to the hunger devastating Nigerians due to his economic policies. He did not speak as a man who heads a government that has reached the peak of bad governance in Nigeria’s history. He sounded like a man living in a world different from where the people he claimed to govern lived. The president essentially gave Nigerians protesting against biting hunger and bad governance the middle finger.
Here are the top ten lies President Tinubu told in his address to the nation.
10: Tinubu said that he heard the protesters loud and clear. A man who heard the witches loud and clear does not go about behaving the same way he did before the witches started crying. But Tinubu did. It is proof that he heard nothing and learned nothing.
9: Tinubu said he must protect lives and properties as president. Meanwhile, a large chunk of Nigeria has been under the control of bandits and different armed groups, but the president has not vowed to protect lives and properties in those areas with the vigour he used now that he felt his government is on the line. Instead, more IDP camps are springing up across the country, with farming communities wiped out, leading to more hunger and discontent.
8: Tinubu urged the protesters to suspend the protest and create room for dialogue. We saw how the Labor Union’s dialogue with Tinubu’s government ended. Their dialogue resulted in a minimum wage change from N30,000 ($60) in May 2023 to Tinubu’s minimum wage of N70,000 ($44) in August 2024. With a 300% increase in food, medicine, transportation, and all goods and services costs, Tinubu’s dialogue left Nigeria workers worse off. He cannot fool us all with his lies about dialogue.
7: Tinubu said the law would catch the bigots threatening some sections of the country. For a man who has some of the architects of that bigotry in his government and who knew those who deployed the same bigotry for him in the last election but did nothing to them, this is more of an insult than a resolve—a complete lie.
6: Tinubu said we had been using temporary solutions to solve long-term problems, so we had made no progress as a nation. The same man could not make himself and his government officials make temporary sacrifices, like perks of their offices, for the long-term well-being of all Nigerians. It is proof that his words were mere rhetoric.
5: On subsidies, Tinubu repeated the same excuses we have heard for so long about blocking rent-seekers and smugglers and subsidizing costs in neighbouring countries. He wasn’t transparent about what had happened to the money “saved.” It was beneath him to explain to Nigerians why he would rather have them suffer pain than deal with the corruption in the oil industry.
4: Tinubu lied that states and local governments of Nigeria were now receiving historic amounts of money each month from the federal allocation. He didn’t tell you that the real value of the billions announced each month is worth less than it was at any time in the last 20 years.
3: Tinubu said that he had reduced the percentage of revenue used to service debt from 97% to 68%. He did not say that the new loans he borrowed in 14 months (over N20 trillion) meant we would use over 100% of our revenue to service our debt when the interest on the new loans was due.
2: Tinubu said that blocking leakages and introducing automation had increased government revenue by a double margin. Yet he had borrowed more loans in one year than Buhari borrowed in 8 years, and he is still borrowing more.
1: Finally, Tinubu said, “Let nobody misinform and miseducate you about your country or tell you that your government does not care about you.” For Nigerians who followed the scandals of Betta Edu, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, Femi Gbajabiamila, Atiku Bagudu, Bello Matawalle, and others who work with Tinubu, they do not need anyone to misinform or miseducate them about their country.
Whenever Nigeria’s number two and three men, Vice President Kashim Shettima and Senate President Godswill Akpabio, open their mouths, they tell Nigerians in more ways than one that “your government does not care about you.” When Nigerians see just the convoys of Tinubu, Shettima, and Akpabio, they feel like joining those protesting on the streets of Nigeria. Imagine how Nigerians will feel when they see the houses where Tinubu, Shettima, and Akpabio live and the food served on their dining tables.
History tells us that ignoring the cries and shutting down the avenue for hungry people to complain to their government is not the problem. The trouble is the government’s ability to imagine the next mutation the hunger in their bellies will transform into. This kind of insensitivity made James Baldwin warn about the fire next time.
● Okonkwo teaches post-colonial African history, Afrodiasporan literature, and African folktales at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
