PRESIDENT Bola Ahmed Tinubu flies the world like a mother bird in search of food for the hungry in its nest. He is a tireless traveller traversing the world, signing strings of trade agreements to shore up a troubled economy.
He has embarked on 33 foreign trips in 18 months, visiting 18 countries. His favourite places being the United Kingdom which he has visited four times, and France, of the woolly Emmanuel Macron, which he has visited five times.
Just on Sunday, November 17, 2024 he touched down in Brazil for the two-day 19th Meeting of the G20 Leaders Summit. There, he signed a $1.2 billion cooperative agreement for Brazil to modernise Nigerian agriculture.
President Tinubu was in France for a three-day state visit from November 28, 2024 and then flew to Cape Town, South Africa on December 2, 2024 signing agreements.
Perhaps it is with France Nigeria needs to be most careful because of that country’s predatory politics. It eliminated two million Algerians when their country opted for independence rather than become a province of France. It physically destroyed infrastructure like roads, water pipes and vehicles in Guinea-Conakry when that country in 1958 voted for independence rather than remain a French colony.
France on January 13, 1963 carried out the first coup in Africa and in the process, summarily executed President Sylvanus Olympio of Togo.
For over 50 years, it forced 14 African countries to keep their foreign reserves in France under its control, ran a French CFA and sabotaged the ECOWAS Eco currency project. When in February 1960 it wanted to test its atomic bomb, it did so in colonised Algeria, not in France so that the French and Europeans would not be affected by its radiation effects.
When a coup took place in Niger Republic in 2023, then French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna arrogantly gave the coup plotters an ultimatum to hand back power or face invasion by a Nigerian-led ECOWAS military force.
Now, France, with its military kicked out of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger Republic, asked by pliant Chad to leave and, told by President Bassirou Diomaye Faye that it is inappropriate to maintain its troops in Senegal, is desperately in search of new military bases.
It has its sight on Nigeria; hence its offer to assist our security should be viewed with suspicion. Two countries have accused France of double dealing with Islamic terrorists. Back in 2021, Mali accused France of supplying arms to the Islamic terrorist group, the Ansar al-Din and creating a haven for them in the Kidal area. Burkina Faso President, Ibrahim Traore, claimed in July, 2024 that France “sets up operations with them (terrorists) and helps them to look after themselves.”
On November 25, 2024 at a meeting in Abuja on trade relations between Australia, Turkey, Indonesia, Mexico and South Korea under a coalition called MIKTA, and some Nigerians, the question was asked why our trade with these countries seem inequitable; should it not be a partnership of equals? The same question can be asked about the string of trade agreements President Tinubu has been busy signing. But can our trade with those countries be equitable if primarily all we offer is oil in its crude form, minerals in their raw form and begging for assistance?
Ambassador Joe Keshi, President of the Association of Retired Career Ambassadors of Nigeria, ARCAN, who was at the MIKTA meeting noted that while the five countries reeled out the progress they had made in the past 40 years, Nigeria had no corresponding story to tell.
He said Nigeria had virtually nothing to trade with, saying we are like the student in a class who does not pass, does not fail and does not leave the class. “We are not retarded, the fact is that we have refused to grow,” he said. His suggestions are that the country invests in the people and human capital development, returns to collective national planning , discipline and punishment for corruption.
I was taught as a kid that it is when a pupil does not know the answer to a question, that he stares at the ceiling; whereas the answer is never hidden there. Similarly, the answer to Nigeria’s myriad of problems is not in the sky. So, frequently taking to the skies will not resolve our problems. I wish President Tinubu would drastically cut his flights and concentrate on providing the answer to our problems.
A question is: why is Nigeria so big on propaganda, but so small in production with a hungry multitude, legion of jobless youths and a combustible army of 18.3 million out-of-school children? I know there are some who will immediately respond that these problems are not Tinubu’s creation, but I am not interested in apportioning blames. My interest is in the solution of our problems which the President out of his freewill offered to lead us to providing. I do not think he has started well as many of his appointments, especially in the ministerial cadre, amount to providing jobs for the ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ rather than appointing the competent, knowledgeable, visionary and, above all, the patriotic. His October 23, 2024 cabinet reshuffle was a mere motion without movement.
Perhaps the most vital direction to take is for his administration to run the country in accordance with the Directive Principles of State Policy as enshrined in Chapter Two of the Constitution and in the interest of the teeming populace. Not in accordance with the sophistry and interests of foreign powers and their enslaving institutions like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, IMF and the World Trade Organisation, WTO.
These suggestions are taking an urgent tone, not just because our people are hungry and getting desperate, but also for the fact that the international scene is changing rapidly. For instance, Nigeria on October 24, 2024 in Kazan, Russia joined the Brazil, Russia, India and China, BRICS, alliance of countries as a partner country. This was a salutary move.
However, 38 days later, the eclectic United States President-elect Donald Trump threatened BRICS and its partners with 100 per cent tariff slam and exclusion from selling into the US economy if they either create a new currency or back any other currency to replace the US Dollar.
This seems a mere threat as the US itself cannot survive such a fight; but we must be ready for the consequences were Trump to selectively implement it, picking on perceived vulnerable countries like Nigeria.
Another emergency we need to prepare for is Trump’s November 7, 2024 threat to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants and, Canada’s follow up threat to evict about five million immigrants. If these threats are carried out, a number of Nigerians from both countries will return to Nigeria.