The problem in Nigeria today, is it outrightly Tinubu's fault?

Would any of the candidates have done better?

I am not trying to hold brief for the government neither will I justify her inefficiencies. I just believe that we should sometimes be objective in our approach.

The Nigeria economy problems started long ago, maybe we take it back to the time of Goodluck Jonathan as the president, when the government starts borrowing money to pay workers salary, when Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the then CBN governor was shouting to call the attention of the government and Nigerians to the massive looting of the Nation's resources in US dollar and the continuous depletion of the foreign reserve and excess crude oil account that Obasanjo built.

Naira problem did not start overnight, the value erosion was gradual. You know that cancer doesn't kill immediately, it does gradually.

At the tail end of the 2015 presidential election, we can all attest to the reign of dollars and how they were shared to the traditional rulers and politicians. The economy was already on distress. Can you imagine how much was allegedly looted by Diazani Madikwe and her toy boys alone not to talk about the numerous unmentioned looting and sharing which some religious leaders benefited from.

Due to the current state of the economy as at when Buhari took over power, he was looking for a way to stop Naira from further drowning and he came up with some terrible policies that further wrecked the currency. For instance, CBN directed DMB to restrict people's access to the money in their domiciliary accounts which gave the black market huge recognition and business, stopped forex allocation to bureau de change operators, the reason for this action might appear reasonable but the implementation was terrible. If anyone is accused of financing terrorism or involved in any malpractices with the allocated forex, why can't you go after the person instead of generalising the punishment? He froze the Naira exchange rate, a policy they could not sustain as the currency kept getting worse daily. He stopped forex access for some products among others which yielded no positive result. They even went after the guy running abokifx.com and accused him of several wrong doings; was the situation any better? Buhari ended up spending a lot to defend naira throughout his administration which gave avenues for politicians, acclaimed business men/women and top civil servants to enrich themselves in foreign currency at the detriment of the entire country.

Buhari worsen the matter with his endless borrowing which majority of the borrowed funds with terrible conditions ended up being looted with little or no positive impact on the economy. Do not forget that, when you borrow fund in foreign currency, you pay back in foreign currency and you want to protect your credit worthiness by making the repayment a top priority. So what happen when you are not generating enough forex?

Do not also forget that during Buhari administration, the then governor of CBN, Godwin Emefiele also alleged that the NNPC which is the organisation responsible for generating the major forex for the country failed to make any remittance to the government for several years.

The fuel subsidiary was a fraud, and a bigger one at that. Almost all the presidential candidates in the last election attested to the needed to stop it immediately as it was a big draining pipe to milk the lingering resources by politicians, civil servants and acclaimed business men/women. Buhari was said to be afraid of stopping it due to so many fears.

Was Bola Tinubu approach to stopping the subsidy the best? Obviously not. You don't stop such a major intervention that has huge impact on your economy and the citizens without any alternatives and respite. But you will agree with me that it was time for fuel subsidy to go though the government failed again in the area of proper implementation.

Floating of Naira might appear to be a policy with good future effect but how do you solve a problem without first addressing it root cause?

We all know that corrupt practises took us to where we are today. The banking institutions were busy maneuvering and taking undue advantage of the system poorly supervised by the former CBN governor to enrich their cabal owners and some politicians at the detriment of the over two hundred and twenty million Nigerians.

The soaring food prices in Nigeria is majorly attributed to the insecurity in the food production region of Nigeria, high cost of transport and the closure of the boarder. The Farmers cannot go to their farms any longer without the fear of being killed or kidnapped. Even when they are not kidnapped, having planted and nurtured their crops , one day, some untouchable entities will take their cows to destroy the farms and the farmers dare not talk else they get killed without any consequence to the killers. Many farmers have to sell off their farmland to pay either levy or ransome to the bandits created by the last administration. Most farming villages have been abandoned since the government can no longer secure their lives and properties. Would the crops grow by itself when the farmers are scared of going to their farm?

When we are not producing enough foods to feed the country, the next alternative is to get the food from the neibouring countries pending when we can address the root cause of our problems. But alas, the land boarders have been closed to food importation but some high and mighty can fly the same food into the country. The boarder closure is just an avenue to enrich the Custom officers and other security operatives working at the boarder. If you go to the popular markets, you will still see foreign rice being sold at outrageous rates. How were the sellers able to get them into the country if no bribery had taken place?

Conclusion:

Has Bola Tinubu done well so far in trying to solve the problems? I will rate him 4 out of 10. I understand that he is trying to lay the foundation to change things for better but the truth is that, you don't start planting yams when the people are already hungry, they might eat you even before the yam starts gaminating in the soil.

Money sharing is not the solution, you will only make corruption stronger with it.

Recommendations:

1. Create state policing and empower the vigilante group to tackle insecurity.

2. Open the boarder for food to come in pending when the issues with farmers will be resolved.

3. Facilitate the use of CNG or LNG for fuelling trucks and do a complete overhaul of the Nigerian Railway system to help with the transportation of food items from the food production areas to the rest of the country.

4. Do a comprehensive evaluation of the black market operations and comeup with guidelines that can easily be monitored by the CBN and EFCC. The international money transfer and Fintechs should not be spared.

5. Go after politicians and civil servants who converted looted funds to forex and stocked them somewhere in their houses and out of the Nigerian banking system. Do not spare the "cabal owners" of the banking institutions likewise as most of them are complicit.

This is view on resolving the immediate Nigeria problem.

Share this in your other groups till it get to the people in authority to do something.

Wonderful writeup.

How do we start this constructive engagement with our leaders as it is very sure that the political class have failed us