When former Senate Chief Whip and senator representing Borno South, Ali Ndume, said in an interview that Nigeria under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is experiencing Kakistrocracy, I could not help than to look up the dictionary meaning of this word again. Kakistocracy means the government by the least competent or least suitable citizens of a state.
The first part of the word comes from the Greek kákisto(s), meaning “worst.” So kakistocracy is “government by the worst.”
Ndume also said something about Kleptocracy, which is a society or system ruled by people who use their power to steal their country’s resources. A corrupt and dishonest government or society characterised by greed. It is not just ordinary corruption; it’s a state of unrestrained political corruption.
There’s something peculiar about Ndume’s submissions. The first is that he is a bonafide member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the ruling party, a ranking Senator that has spent about 20 years in the National Assembly, and had contested to be the Senate President in 2015. He has divergent experience, having been appointed Chairman of different committees, including defence. He climbed to the position of the Chief Whip in 2023. He was at the forefront in the election of Tinubu as President, and was the Chief Spokesperson in the election of Godswill Akpabio as Senate President, against his fellow Northerner.
When Ndume talks about this government, nobody will deny him his bragging right that he is a stakeholder. Unfortunately for Ndume, he forgot to forecast that this government will only be for the jagabanic proteges tainted with the emilokan philosophy. Ndume also should share in the blame for the emergence of Tinubu’s government. There’s nothing Tinubu is doing today that he didn’t start while the campaign was on. Tinubu till date did not organise any press conference to answer questions from Nigerians on his manifesto. He did not attend any live television or radio interview to explain his agenda. He didn’t participate in any of the debates. He practically was unaccessible to the Nigerian people during campaign, yet Ndume said he is the most qualified.
The effects of these kakistocrats and kleptocrats in government are very obvious. The government started with Tinubu unilaterally declaring “fuel subsidy is gone.” This was at his inaugural speech when he has not constituted a cabinet, which eventually and incompetently took him almost 60 days to constitute. No leader in the whole world will take such a huge decision without consulting all the stakeholders in the economy.
Tinubu went further to depreciate the naira by more than 300 per cent within the first 100 days in office. Again without the input of the major stakeholders in the economy. His only reason for embarking on the policy was to bridge the gap between the official rate of foreign exchange market and the parallel market rate. This revealed that the government is not aware that strong currency is predicated on strong economy, and strong economy presupposes an industrial productive base and a steady export market. The only way to bridge the gap is by productivity, which will make foreign currencies surplus and cheaper, chasing fewer naira, as we export more than we import, not by depreciation of naira.
This government is embarking on reckless spate of consumption rather than production. It is the poorest government since independence, yet running the most bloated bureaucracy, having about 48 Ministers which will soon turn 49, as the President has ill-advisedly created another Ministry for Livestock. Dangote described the devaluation of the naira as the worst mistake of this regime.
These twin policies, which are egregiously ill-timed bad policies, will define this regime forever, because it may never recover from them. The regime itself cannot even afford to import refined products at the same price that it met it because of the depreciation of the naira. This is why oil subsidy was reintroduced to be able to continue importing refined oil. This made nonsense of his inaugural speech that fuel subsidy was gone.
These twin policies have led to astronomical increases in the price of commodities. Bag of rice that was about N19,000.00 is now about N100,000.00 under Tinubu. So also bags of maize, tomatoes, which are about N100,000.00 as per Ndume’s observation.
A friend of mine wanted to travel to Benin for a burial ceremony of his friend. The flight ticket was N250,000.00 from Abuja to Benin, and N250,000.00 from Benin to Abuja. Whooping N500,000.00, economy class, for a journey to pay condolences to a friend. Of course the journey was aborted. No thanks to the government of kakistocrats and kleptocrats.
The most disheartening one is the issue of the collapse of the Heritage Bank. For the avoidance of doubt, during Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s regime, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) consolidated the banking industry. It set a benchmark amount for recapitalisation for all banks below which no bank will be permitted to operate. Banks were forced to merge, and were forced to increase their capital base, thereby reducing the risk of collapse of the banks with its attendant consequences of the demise of the deposits of the customers of the bank. No bank was allowed to collapse after that as the CBN maintained a proactive approach to salvaging any ailing bank before collapse. This it did by identifying weak banks very early, removing the leadership of the bank, appointing qualified hands to run the banks, getting a new investor to take over the bank, and injecting more funds into it. This eventually safeguarded the deposits of the customers. Subsequent CBN administrations towed this line and ensured that no bank died.
However, when this regime came into power, we started hearing again about bank collapse. The surprising thing about the collapse of Heritage Bank is not just that it collapsed, but the dishonest way this government, and the CBN are going about its collapse. Sometime last year, towards the last quarter of the year, when the media houses started sending out their concerns about Heritage Bank and the possibility of a collapse, the CBN, speedily released a press statement, on December 11, 2023, stating that “the attention of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has been drawn to reports in some media outlets suggesting that some licensed commercial banks in the country had failed the CBN’s Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) for international authorisation. We wish to clarify that the Nigerian banking industry remains resilient as key financial soundness indicators were within the regulatory thresholds as captured in the CBN’s most recent Economic Report of 2023.”
When journalists insisted that Nigeria banks were not healthy and mentioned Heritage Bank by name, CBN said: “The attention of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has been drawn to false and malicious stories on the social media insinuating that Heritage Bank is under financial distress and therefore unable to discharge its obligations to its depositors. We wish to state that Heritage Bank is not in distress and as such its depositors should go about their transactions without fear. We therefore wish to assure all depositors of the safety of their deposits. The CBN also wishes to state that it will remain alive to its responsibility of ensuring banking system stability and soundness through constant monitoring and supervision of all licensed institutions.”
Still not satisfied with the assurances from the CBN, the media houses recommended that the CBN took over Heritage Bank before it was too late. The CBN yet again said on December 27, 2023: “The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has noticed reports, in certain media outlets, about a recommendation for the Federal Government to take over some CBN-supervised financial institutions. For the avoidance of doubt, Nigerian banks remain safe and sound. The CBN encourages the public to continue their regular activities without being alarmed by reports that have not emanated from the CBN about the health status of Nigerian banks. The CBN is fully equipped to carry out its statutory duty of upholding a stable financial system in Nigeria.” To complete the assurance to the public, on April 26, 2024, the CBN listed the healthy banks in Nigeria, and Heritage Bank was conspicuously present in it.
Disastrously, five weeks after that, Heritage Bank collapsed and despite all assurances from CBN, the depositors are no longer assured of the safety of their funds. Some of them died of heart attacks, while some are in the hospital. Their deposits obviously have been squandered by some unscrupulous corrupt officers of the bank of whom this government must bring to justice.
If this is not government of kakistocrats and kleptocrats, then what is it? This government should use all the money it is purporting to use for palliatives to pay all the depositors their funds while selling the bank to some new investors who will take over the bank and ensure that no investor loses anything. The economic consequences of not doing anything will result in death of more businesses, unemployment, and collapse of more banks.
Peoplesmind
