Spin is a tactic of political propaganda that is designed to influence public perception and make lies sound sweet to the ear. The Collins English Dictionary defines a spin as “a person who provides a favourable slant to an item of news, potentially unpopular policy, etc. especially on behalf of a political personality or party”.
Since his inauguration as President, Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in May 2023, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has consistently adopted spin tactics to manipulate public opinion about his policies that have negatively impacted large aggregates of Nigerian citizens.
Every nefarious policy measure of the Tinubu Presidency is falsely presented as “Reform”. For effectiveness, this false narrative is repeated with unwavering consistency by his aides and party apologists to make them acceptable.
It is claimed that the sterile policies are designed to ameliorate the fast deteriorating social and economic condition of Nigerian citizens. Nothing could be farther from the truth. This propagandist posture is the main defence of his henchmen for the planlessness of his administration and his unmitigated failures.
President Tinubu started with his twin measures of removal of fuel subsidy and floating of Naira. He followed with increased taxation in various spheres at a time when the earning capacity of citizens was dwindling fast. Even his cabinet reshuffle on October 23, 2024, which reinforced the nepotistic bent of his administrative structure, was dubbed as reform.
Concepts should be defined and applied to things or situations to obtain a fit. It is deceptive to apply the same word or concept to different situations and things – calling different things by the same name.
By definition, reform should imply a definite shift or change in the way that things are done. The Collins English Dictionary online, states that “reform consists of changes and improvements to a law, social system, or institution.”
Not one of the range of activities labeled as reform by Tinubu (fuel price deregulation, floating of Naira, education loan to students, increased taxes, nominal raising of national minimum wage, creation of Livestock Ministry, cabinet reshuffle) meets the descriptive attributes or defining characteristics of the concept. In other words, the definiens (concept of reform) does not properly apply to the definiendum (Tinubu’s official action – fuel price deregulation, floating of Naira, increased taxes etc). The properties that define the concept of reform do not fit the policies to which Tinubu ascribes them.
President Tinubu’s fuel pricing and Naira floating measures represent an intensification of nearly 40-year old Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), the failed and dysfunctional IMF-inspired measures, instituted by Nigeria’s 6th Military Dictator, General Ibrahim Babangida in 1986.
One of the pillars of the deregulation aspect of SAP was removal of fixed foreign exchange rate with the introduction of dual exchange rate system on September 26, 1986. Consequently, the Foreign Exchange Market (FEM) was put in place. Prior to the establishment of FEM, the Naira was officially fixed at N1.5535 to $1 as at September 25, 1986. At the end of Babagida’s regime in September 1993, his floating of the Naira had resulted in a drastic fall in the value of the Naira to N22 to $1 representing a percentage fall in value of 1,316 per cent over its pre-SAP value.
This obnoxious deregulation policy continued under successive military and civilian administrations since that time. When ex-President Jonathan handed over to Major General Buhari on May 29, 2015, fuel price was N97 per liter while exchange rate was N198.50 to $1.
When ex-President Buhari handed over to Tinubu on May 29, 2023, fuel price was N195 per liter and exchange rate was N464. 51 to $1.
Within 17 months of President Tinubu’s administration, fuel price increased from N195 per litre to N1,200 per litre while the Naira deteriorated abysmally from N464.51 to $1, to N1,750 to $1.
On the education index, President Tinubu reintroduced students’ loan scheme for students in tertiary institutions in the country in July 2024. This programme started more than 55 years ago during the tenure of Nigeria’s 2nd Military Dictator, General Yakubu Gowon (retd). While Tinubu’s reintroduction of students’ Loan Scheme is commendable, it does not amount to reform in the education sector because the foundation of backwardness, poverty, insecurity and lack of effective civic participation in Nigeria’s public affairs is the unacceptably high number of out-of-school children between 6 and 18 years in the country. According to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Report in September 2022, about 20 million Nigerian children and youths were out-of-school. (UNESCO, Estimation Confirms Out-Of-School Population Is Growing In Sub-Saharan Africa, FACTSHEET 62 / POLICY PAPER 48, September 2022). The average annual education budget in Nigeria in the past 10 years is about 6 per cent which is far below the UNESCO recommendation of between 15% and 20%.
Tinubu’s political party is in control of the Executive arm of the Federal Government, the National Assembly and majority of state governments in the country. He has not initiated any policy shift on mass education for Nigerian children. This is a criminal neglect that poses unspeakable danger to present and future generations. Giving loans to students in tertiary institutions is not a viable alternative to this structural change that is urgently required in the education sector.
In another controversial measure, President Tinubu split the Federal Ministry of Agriculture in October 2024, to create a new Ministry of Livestock Development. He appointed Alhaji Mukhtar Idi from Borno State as Minister of the new Ministry. He had earlier established Livestock Reform Committee with himself as Chairman and Professor Attahiru Jega as co-chair.
Beyond this bureaucratic multiplication of posts, the President seems to be keeping his plan to himself. He has failed completely to reveal to Nigerians the details of the project. He is yet to do anything remotely close to reform in the livestock industry in Nigeria. One is yet to see how his administration will engage in livestock farming when the Federal Government has no land anywhere in the country.
Any plan, by whatever name it is called, that involves annexation of ancestral land of indigenous peoples in any part of Middle Belt and Southern Nigeria must be seen as a revival of the infamous Buhari RUGA Settlement Scheme. RUGA is Hausa word for cow.
President Tinubu’s establishment of the Ministry of Livestock seeks to sweep under the carpet, all the atrocities committed by armed herders during eight years of former President Buhari. According to Nigeria Security Tracker (NST), a project of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Africa programme which documents violence in Nigeria, about 4,068 persons were killed by herdsmen and bandits between 2015 and 2019.
The creation of the new Livestock Ministry must be viewed against the background of the refusal of the Tinubu-led Federal Government to investigate or bring to book those that have violently killed thousands of crop farmers, seized their land and displaced several hundred thousand others in Benue, Plateau, Niger, Taraba and other states. Nigerians are waiting to see how many more crop farming communities the President’s project will displace to please violent herders.
By the National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Act 2024, which he signed into law on July 29, 2024, President Tinubu raised the minimum wage of Nigerian workers to N70,000 (seventy thousand Naira only) per month. He rejected the demand of Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) for N250,000 per month. The new minimum wage actually amounted to a substantial reduction in earning of Nigerian workers because N70,000 in 2024 is worth only $40 (at the rate of N1,750 to $1). This is less than 50 per cent of $83.3 (at the rate of N360.1 to $1) which was the worth of N30,000 in April 2019. The situation is made far worse by drastic fall in the value of the Naira occasioned by total fuel price deregulation and floating of the Naira.
For example, in April 2019, a 50kg bag of rice costs N12,000 in Nigeria. Under Tinubu, the same bag of rice costs N120,000. In real terms, one month’s wage in 2019 could purchase two and a half bags of 50kg rice, but under Tinubu, one month’s wage of N70,000 could purchase only 76.68 percent of the same bag of rice. This shows that in 2024, Nigerian workers earn only 17.14 per cent of what they earn in 2019. One wonders how this amounts to reform.
In spite of the fact that his policies impoverish more and more citizens, Tinubu introduced series of tax increases. These include 300 per cent increase in electricity tariff for ‘Band A’ consumers even as power supply deteriorated abysmally.
In May 2024, Tinubu imposed 0.5% levy on some electronic transactions. He followed in July 2024, with retroactive 50% windfall tax on the foreign exchange gains made by Nigerian banks following the devaluation of the Naira in 2023.
In October 2024, Tinubu imposed 5 per cent tax on telecommunications services but withdrew it following huge public outcry. His administration increased interest rate to 26.75 per cent, compared to 11 per cent over the past two years.
All these harsh policies that visited intolerable hardship on citizens, he unconscionably labeled as ‘reform’.
The pauperisation of the masses by the Tinubu administration resulted in a 10-day hunger protest in August 2024. Apparently to muzzle the voice of opposition, he arrested and detained over 1,200 persons, including youths and minors in dehumanizing conditions. Most of the detainees remained in jail without trial for over three months. About 72 of them, including 32 minors were subsequently charged with terrorism and treason.
The public outcry that followed arraignment of minors at an Abuja Federal High Court on November 1, 2024, compelled the President to order their release.
Although most Nigerians fail to interrogate the veracity of President Tinubu’s inexistent reforms, the impact of systematic lies in the public space can only be potent in the short run. In the medium and longer run, flamboyant claims of phony reforms certainly erode public trust. At this stage, as citizens witness the inevitable collapse of his lies, the boomerang effect on the spin-master will be politically devastating.
Citizens are constantly told to be patient but they will wait in vain because, thus far, the President has ignored fundamentals of the Nigerian predicament and has not embarked on reform in any vital sector of the Nigerian society.
The issue before Nigeria is how to achieve progress that would ensure the prosperity and happiness of citizens. Since his inauguration in May 2023, President Tinubu has not addressed the fundamental issue of nation building. He has done absolutely nothing by way of reform of relevant institutions to improve education, health, free and fair elections, productivity and standard of living. More and more citizens wallow in ignorance, disease, extreme poverty, insecurity and deprivation of right to protest. The constant refrain of the President and his henchmen that their anti-people policies constitute reform is a gigantic web of mass deceit that would only lead to prolong suffering of the Nigerian masses. OF PRESIDENT TINUBU
By Chris O. O. Biose
chrisoobiose@gmail.com
Spin is a tactic of political propaganda that is designed to influence public perception and make lies sound sweet to the ear. The Collins English Dictionary defines a spin as “a person who provides a favourable slant to an item of news, potentially unpopular policy, etc. especially on behalf of a political personality or party”.
Since his inauguration as President, Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in May 2023, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has consistently adopted spin tactics to manipulate public opinion about his policies that have negatively impacted large aggregates of Nigerian citizens.
Every nefarious policy measure of the Tinubu Presidency is falsely presented as “Reform”. For effectiveness, this false narrative is repeated with unwavering consistency by his aides and party apologists to make them acceptable.
It is claimed that the sterile policies are designed to ameliorate the fast deteriorating social and economic condition of Nigerian citizens. Nothing could be farther from the truth. This propagandist posture is the main defence of his henchmen for the planlessness of his administration and his unmitigated failures.
President Tinubu started with his twin measures of removal of fuel subsidy and floating of Naira. He followed with increased taxation in various spheres at a time when the earning capacity of citizens was dwindling fast. Even his cabinet reshuffle on October 23, 2024, which reinforced the nepotistic bent of his administrative structure, was dubbed as reform.
Concepts should be defined and applied to things or situations to obtain a fit. It is deceptive to apply the same word or concept to different situations and things – calling different things by the same name.
By definition, reform should imply a definite shift or change in the way that things are done. The Collins English Dictionary online, states that “reform consists of changes and improvements to a law, social system, or institution.”
Not one of the range of activities labeled as reform by Tinubu (fuel price deregulation, floating of Naira, education loan to students, increased taxes, nominal raising of national minimum wage, creation of Livestock Ministry, cabinet reshuffle) meets the descriptive attributes or defining characteristics of the concept. In other words, the definiens (concept of reform) does not properly apply to the definiendum (Tinubu’s official action – fuel price deregulation, floating of Naira, increased taxes etc). The properties that define the concept of reform do not fit the policies to which Tinubu ascribes them.
President Tinubu’s fuel pricing and Naira floating measures represent an intensification of nearly 40-year old Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), the failed and dysfunctional IMF-inspired measures, instituted by Nigeria’s 6th Military Dictator, General Ibrahim Babangida in 1986.
One of the pillars of the deregulation aspect of SAP was removal of fixed foreign exchange rate with the introduction of dual exchange rate system on September 26, 1986. Consequently, the Foreign Exchange Market (FEM) was put in place. Prior to the establishment of FEM, the Naira was officially fixed at N1.5535 to $1 as at September 25, 1986. At the end of Babagida’s regime in September 1993, his floating of the Naira had resulted in a drastic fall in the value of the Naira to N22 to $1 representing a percentage fall in value of 1,316 per cent over its pre-SAP value.
This obnoxious deregulation policy continued under successive military and civilian administrations since that time. When ex-President Jonathan handed over to Major General Buhari on May 29, 2015, fuel price was N97 per liter while exchange rate was N198.50 to $1.
When ex-President Buhari handed over to Tinubu on May 29, 2023, fuel price was N195 per liter and exchange rate was N464. 51 to $1.
Within 17 months of President Tinubu’s administration, fuel price increased from N195 per litre to N1,200 per litre while the Naira deteriorated abysmally from N464.51 to $1, to N1,750 to $1.
On the education index, President Tinubu reintroduced students’ loan scheme for students in tertiary institutions in the country in July 2024. This programme started more than 55 years ago during the tenure of Nigeria’s 2nd Military Dictator, General Yakubu Gowon (retd). While Tinubu’s reintroduction of students’ Loan Scheme is commendable, it does not amount to reform in the education sector because the foundation of backwardness, poverty, insecurity and lack of effective civic participation in Nigeria’s public affairs is the unacceptably high number of out-of-school children between 6 and 18 years in the country. According to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Report in September 2022, about 20 million Nigerian children and youths were out-of-school. (UNESCO, Estimation Confirms Out-Of-School Population Is Growing In Sub-Saharan Africa, FACTSHEET 62 / POLICY PAPER 48, September 2022). The average annual education budget in Nigeria in the past 10 years is about 6 per cent which is far below the UNESCO recommendation of between 15% and 20%.
Tinubu’s political party is in control of the Executive arm of the Federal Government, the National Assembly and majority of state governments in the country. He has not initiated any policy shift on mass education for Nigerian children.
This is a criminal neglect that poses unspeakable danger to present and future generations. Giving loans to students in tertiary institutions is not a viable alternative to this structural change that is urgently required in the education sector.
In another controversial measure, President Tinubu split the Federal Ministry of Agriculture in October 2024, to create a new Ministry of Livestock Development. He appointed Alhaji Mukhtar Idi from Borno State as Minister of the new Ministry. He had earlier established Livestock Reform Committee with himself as Chairman and Professor Attahiru Jega as co-chair.
Beyond this bureaucratic multiplication of posts, the President seems to be keeping his plan to himself. He has failed completely to reveal to Nigerians the details of the project. He is yet to do anything remotely close to reform in the livestock industry in Nigeria. One is yet to see how his administration will engage in livestock farming when the Federal Government has no land anywhere in the country.
Any plan, by whatever name it is called, that involves annexation of ancestral land of indigenous peoples in any part of Middle Belt and Southern Nigeria must be seen as a revival of the infamous Buhari RUGA Settlement Scheme. RUGA is Hausa word for cow.
President Tinubu’s establishment of the Ministry of Livestock seeks to sweep under the carpet, all the atrocities committed by armed herders during eight years of former President Buhari. According to Nigeria Security Tracker (NST), a project of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Africa programme which documents violence in Nigeria, about 4,068 persons were killed by herdsmen and bandits between 2015 and 2019.
The creation of the new Livestock Ministry must be viewed against the background of the refusal of the Tinubu-led Federal Government to investigate or bring to book those that have violently killed thousands of crop farmers, seized their land and displaced several hundred thousand others in Benue, Plateau, Niger, Taraba and other states. Nigerians are waiting to see how many more crop farming communities the President’s project will displace to please violent herders.
By the National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Act 2024, which he signed into law on July 29, 2024, President Tinubu raised the minimum wage of Nigerian workers to N70,000 (seventy thousand Naira only) per month. He rejected the demand of Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) for N250,000 per month. The new minimum wage actually amounted to a substantial reduction in earning of Nigerian workers because N70,000 in 2024 is worth only $40 (at the rate of N1,750 to $1). This is less than 50 per cent of $83.3 (at the rate of N360.1 to $1) which was the worth of N30,000 in April 2019. The situation is made far worse by drastic fall in the value of the Naira occasioned by total fuel price deregulation and floating of the Naira.
For example, in April 2019, a 50kg bag of rice costs N12,000 in Nigeria. Under Tinubu, the same bag of rice costs N120,000. In real terms, one month’s wage in 2019 could purchase two and a half bags of 50kg rice, but under Tinubu, one month’s wage of N70,000 could purchase only 76.68 percent of the same bag of rice. This shows that in 2024, Nigerian workers earn only 17.14 per cent of what they earn in 2019. One wonders how this amounts to reform.
In spite of the fact that his policies impoverish more and more citizens, Tinubu introduced series of tax increases. These include 300 per cent increase in electricity tariff for ‘Band A’ consumers even as power supply deteriorated abysmally.
In May 2024, Tinubu imposed 0.5% levy on some electronic transactions. He followed in July 2024, with retroactive 50% windfall tax on the foreign exchange gains made by Nigerian banks following the devaluation of the Naira in 2023.
In October 2024, Tinubu imposed 5 per cent tax on telecommunications services but withdrew it following huge public outcry. His administration increased interest rate to 26.75 per cent, compared to 11 per cent over the past two years.
All these harsh policies that visited intolerable hardship on citizens, he unconscionably labeled as ‘reform’.
The pauperisation of the masses by the Tinubu administration resulted in a 10-day hunger protest in August 2024. Apparently to muzzle the voice of opposition, he arrested and detained over 1,200 persons, including youths and minors in dehumanizing conditions. Most of the detainees remained in jail without trial for over three months. About 72 of them, including 32 minors were subsequently charged with terrorism and treason.
The public outcry that followed arraignment of minors at an Abuja Federal High Court on November 1, 2024, compelled the President to order their release.
Although most Nigerians fail to interrogate the veracity of President Tinubu’s inexistent reforms, the impact of systematic lies in the public space can only be potent in the short run. In the medium and longer run, flamboyant claims of phony reforms certainly erode public trust. At this stage, as citizens witness the inevitable collapse of his lies, the boomerang effect on the spin-master will be politically devastating.
Citizens are constantly told to be patient but they will wait in vain because, thus far, the President has ignored fundamentals of the Nigerian predicament and has not embarked on reform in any vital sector of the Nigerian society.
The issue before Nigeria is how to achieve progress that would ensure the prosperity and happiness of citizens. Since his inauguration in May 2023, President Tinubu has not addressed the fundamental issue of nation building. He has done absolutely nothing by way of reform of relevant institutions to improve education, health, free and fair elections, productivity and standard of living. More and more citizens wallow in ignorance, disease, extreme poverty, insecurity and deprivation of right to protest. The constant refrain of the President and his henchmen that their anti-people policies constitute reform is a gigantic web of mass deceit that would only lead to prolong suffering of the Nigerian masses.
Chris O. O. Biose is a Sociologist, former Teaching Service Commissioner in old Bendel State, Author and Rights Activist.chrisoobiose@gmail.com
