IT was the Buhari administration that fast tracked the impoverishment of Nigerians started by the dim witted Jonathan but Asiwaju Tinubu has completed the process with a systematic outflow of not well thought after policies mixed with cryptic nepotism and a huge sense of monarchical entitlement.
Today we now have three classes of Nigerians- ultra rich, poor and peasants.
The middle class have been totally anihilated pushing a whole generation of Nigerians into the largest grouping of mass poverty since the civil war.
Taxed to the hilt, buffeted by hyper inflation, galloping unemployment, inefficient policy initiatives and execution , massively reduced purchasing power, the middle class created by the Obasanjo administration have been pushed to the ‘poor’ category devoid of any possible return in this lifetime.
The original poor are now peasants. They are now what I want to call urban peasants who have returned to the earth for survival. They depend on handsout, no access to healthcare and even eat from the dustbin leading them to live far terrible lives than the cave men who first roamed the earth.
The ultra rich are those who benefit from the rent structure that have been put in place by the entrenched prebendalism of our politics and existence
For these ones, they either profit directly from the loopholes in the system and from the corruption that pervades governance as a result of a centralised control of national resources or plug in indirectly to this strutcure either by emotional relationship or by providing capacity needed either by access or technical as they milk the systen dry.
It is these ones that continue to fuel the hyper decimation of the economy as they influence policy, redirecting it from common good and pushing it towards selfish purposes, fuel the continued killing of the Naira as currency for exchange is forex, drive inflation as their demand for luxury goods and lifestyle remains at an all time high pushing demand for forex beyond systemic capacity to deliver.
The kind of democracy we run allows for these as ‘boys’ have to be rewarded and kept happy. It gets worse when you throw up a system with a huge credibility issue leading to the need to shore it up by fronting benefits.
All these have pushed the middle class into not being able to afford a lifestyle that they could easily afford just 10years ago.
Today a Bank Senior Manager a bonafide memder of the erstwhile middle class can no longer afford a car, mortgage payments, rent a flat in upscale Lekki, afford summer vacations, sch fees in some high end schoos, , afford basic healthcare and dine in some restaurants and even pay his Band A power obligation
You begin to see the hoopla that follows every time DSTV raises its tarrif as he sees even that one slipping away.
In response, the Government is increasing taxes and levies to shore up its revenue base hopefully trying to reflate the economy but really not doing anything about leakages and its own spendings. Little or no control on Government expenditure leading to a frittering away of the incresse in revenue collected.
The Government has to start looking at how it would reflate the middle class cos they form the bedrock of the SMEs who hold down the economy. The obliteration of the middle class has led to the increase in mortality in the SME space.
Government has to start taking itself much more seriously. It must first begin with a serious cabinet shake up, to weed away the ones that got appointment as reward and bring in some real square heads.
It must start to push some long term reliefs to the sme space, like tax breaks, grants, support and all that to get them to attack the unemployment issue with a bid to reflating purchasing power
It must stop paying lipservice to corruption. It must engage it as an economic weapon not as a punitive measure. The term economic sabotage must be brought back to our lexicon. People must be made to see themselves as economic sabouteurs in some of these actions and dealt with accordingly.
Corruption forgiveness could be given to past offenders so that recoveries can be eased in but sanctions like no more public appointments etc must be imposed.
In all, Nigeria today have just created one of the largest pool of urban poor any where in the world and almost at anytime in world history and the sad thing is that with clear eyed leadership we can up turn this in less than four years but the question in the air is – will they allow our true leaders emerge?
Thank you.
Duke of Shomolu
