FELIX NWANERI 
Dr. SKC Ogbonnia is a former presidential aspirant of the All Progressives Congress (APC). In this interview with Felix Nwaneri, he speaks on the state of the nation, President Bola Tinubu’s performance and other issues
What is your take on the state of the nation vis a vis the performance of the President Bola Tinubu-led All Progressives Congress (APC) administration?
The wonders of Bola Tinubu during the 2023 elections were so incredible that many had suggested that the man had magical powers. This is a man, who, despite being a beneficiary of Nigeria’s most flawed presidential election, went on to assume power with ease, while the opposition kept moping as if somehow power is suddenly ‘served a la carte.’
And, apparently emboldened by the way he became president against all odds; Tinubu began his presidency with impunity and continues to reel out recklessly bold policies in defiance of commonsense conventions. Tinubu continues to assume, and understandably so, that mere hope is a strategy. The worst wonder is an apparent taboo: he made good his promise to build upon the policies of his predecessor.
The predecessor, of course, is no other than Muhammadu Buhari – a man who at the time of his exit had no close second in the ranking of Nigeria’s worst leaders. Little did the world know that it wouldn’t take up to a year before Tinubu would surpass Buhari as nation’s worst president ever. Today, every index of development is pointing downside.
A telling example is the purported removal of the fuel subsidy by Tinubu which has resulted to a situation where the citizens of Nigeria, where the minimum wage was N30,000 before it was recently increased to N70,000 are paying more for fuel than those in the United States of America, where the minimum wage about N3 million. The unemployment rate is raging to 40 per cent. Inflation is at all-time high. Insecurity is also at all-time high.
The nation’s currency has depreciated by over 300 per cent since Tinubu assumed power. Tens of millions of more Nigerians have been pushed into abject poverty. Even as Tinubu secretly reinstated the fuel subsidy, the outlook remains hopeless.
Despite the sad picture you painted about the government, some of the President’s supporters still insist that he is on the right track and that his policies will soon begin to yield desired results…
His government is as confused as it is clueless yet many Nigerians still cheer him on. Even though millions are dying from acute hunger and other forms of hardship because of his policies, no one seems to care or complain.
Members of the legislature, particularly those of the opposition, who are supposed to checkmate him are also cheering him on. The labour unions have become all bark and no bite. Not even under the military regimes did Nigerians endure naked misrule as they now do under Tinubu.
But, in all these, the objective fact is that most Nigerians are inflicted and thus held in bondage. Aisha Buhari, at a time of the gross misrule of President Muhammadu Buhari, once asked: ‘Where are Nigerian men?’ Today, as Tinubu has become worse than Buhari, I am asking: Where are Nigerian men and women? Where are men and women who are ready to extricate themselves from Tinubu and hold him to account?
For the government, any opposing view is either treasonable felony or secession, coup plot and consequently, a threat to Nigeria’s democracy but those in government are the real enemies of the country’s democracy
Some Nigerians, mostly young people, recently tried to hold the government to account through the #EndBadGovernance protest but they were tagged divisive elements. How would you react to that?
The #EndBadGovernance protest in Nigeria against the gross misrule of President Bola Tinubu has come and gone. Not surprisingly, instead of concrete solutions for a better future, the president remains busy jailing innocent protesters and misleading Nigerians on how he foiled a plot for a regime change.
Yes, for the government, any opposing view is either treasonable felony or secession, coup plot and consequently, a threat to Nigeria’s democracy but those in government are the real enemies of the country’s democracy. Let me explain. Recall that former President Muhammadu Buhari drove the Nigerian economy to the rock bottom.
Then consider that his successor, Tinubu himself, has already shattered the very rock of the bottom to crash the country to the deepest low. Follow that with the fundamental fact that bad governance is historically the biggest threat to the Nigerian democracy.
You are a founding member of the APC alongside the likes of President Tinubu, and you once aspired for the party’s presidential ticket. Are you now saying that you are disappointed with the party and the President?
Clearly, this is not the Tinubu that some of us had admired and cheered to protest against bad governments and demanded revolution in the past. The man at the Aso Rock is far from the defacto opposition leader we followed to form the AllProgressive Congress (APC).
This is not the character that prompted me at the time to pen that ‘if dynamic opposition is the life-wire of a democracy, it is very fitting then to name him (Tinubu) the saviour of Nigeria’s current democratic journey.’ Sadly, this version of Asiwaju is polar opposite to his old self.
But given the common knowledge that bad governance is historically the biggest threat to Nigerian democracy, it is time for the APC, the legislature, as well as the masses to see the needed change. Having fulfilled his lifelong ambition of becoming president; now is Tinubu’s turn to emulate a good American example for a change.
He can equally take a page from former President Goodluck Jonathan, who resisted the temptation of rigging the 2015 presidential election but instead made history by surrendering power to us in the opposition. As at then Jonathan was viewed as ‘clueless.’ Today, despite the perceived cluelessness, Jonathan has emerged as a hero of democracy.
When you talk about surrendering power; are you saying that the President should resign or that he should forget about a second term?
Tinubu’s ready answer, of course, is for Nigerians to wait till the 2027 polls for any thought of regime change. Of course, he would want us to wait forever; after all, neither him nor any member of his family feels the crushing pain. But Nigerians must not buy him any more time.
The records show that his government is by far the worst in the nation’s history. He has already proven why a vast majority of Nigerians rejected him at the election that brought him to power. While he carefully planned how to gain power by any means, it has become very clear that he never planned how to govern.
Thus his main preoccupation since assumption of office has been how to sustain power by any means and continue to exhibit ostentatious lifestyle while at the same time subjecting millions of Nigerian masses to abject penury and despair.
In the interim, what would you suggest that the APC government should do in order to cushion effects of the challenges Nigerians are facing at the moment?
Clearly, there is an urgent need for real solutions. But it is equally clear that Tinubu and his regime have run out of ideas. Even the backdoor return of the controversial fuel subsidy has failed to help matters. This slew of abject failures has roots in both his mental and physical conditions.
