You know there are somethings that are so simple that it’s amazing that nobody thinks about them or even recognises them when they occur.
This statement attributed to influential politician Chief Dele Momodu is one of them.
That someone imported the Lagos template to Abuja and that’s why things are like this.
This statement is so apt in its engagement and also so simple that even a 10 year old understands its import but then again so far reaching that its effect is monstrous when applied.
I once sat with a huge PDP chieftain and former Governor of a state at his dinner table when Chief Tinubu just won the APC nomination and told him that Tinubu will win but he would be the weakest President in our history.
The party stalwart who although was a strong member of the opposition and who still has a strong affinity with Tinubu did not agree with me and I left the argument.
Ali Ndume just validated my statement with his, President has been captured statement And with this Dele Momodu statement we get further affirmation.
https://africabriefing.com/china-becomes-leading-arms-supplier-to-sub-saharan-africa/
As a student of political psychology what is happening is very familiar.
The President is in an unfamiliar terrain even for a political godfather like Tinubu and he would need to surround himself with familiar faces and talent that he can trust.
It is to the huge lack of self confidence that the President has surrounded himself with almost everybody that worked with him in Lagos and the inexperience is showing very greatly.
I would have expected him to build his kitchen cabinet around his Wife and Gbaja and from there fan out around the country picking competence.
The last we saw of this was OBJ who fanned out looking for the best brains to complement his assertiveness and the results remain for us to see
Now governance in a sub national is totally different from the National.
At the subnational level, you execute and really don’t trigger holistic national vision as it where.
At the state level, you drive sub national vision derived in most cases from direction pushed out at the National level especially if u are of the same party.
So you don’t contend with currency, economy, international relations, security and all that at the National level.
At the state level, you get your allocations, generate some more and implement and this is why people like Wike are rated very high cos of number of bridges and roads he built as against Tinubu who would be rated over price of food, Inflation, exchange rate and those kinds of things at the centre.
So moving almost all those who worked for you in Lagos ti strategic positions in the centre will definitely come with a debilitating inexperience that would impact negatively on performance.
I will not want to go into the sublime meaning of Chief Momodu’s statement as regards the inevitable rent seeking, compensatory relationships bw forces that this lack of capacity in appointments will forge on the system but will deliberately look at the top of mind in efficiencies this has fostered on governance
https://africabriefing.com/op-ed-national-wealth-funds-fuel-green-investment-growth-for-global-south/
Little soldiers in a giant war will at best throw up tepid results.
We see the swing approach to the forex crises. The yo-yo nature of that fight and the lack of weight to pull in international support in that war beyond pulling in more debt and throwing it at the fire.
The economy lacks such huge internationally regarded personalities like the ones OBJ pulled into the matter to win the historic debt relief for example.
We seem to have thrown eaglets at a matter of gargantuan proportions and this seems to be the same situation across board cabinet wide.
Scan thru the cabinet and other strategic positions , you will see a lack of weight and positions filled in with lackeys making Nigerians shake their heads in a daze of confusion.
From the scandal of Betty Edu which nearly consumed the Minister of Internal affairs to the very quiet ICT Minister who we hoped would perform some kind of revolution judging by his credentials and the leap frogging of the sector itself, to the snail like caricature in solid minerals, to the ding dong personalities that head power, oil and gas amongst others, you see a collage of little personalities complemented with the comical involvement of the Minister who once wanted to sue the UN.
This is the reason why some of us have asked for a cabinet shake up.
Truth is that, President Tinubu has to start showing a consistent movement towards sincerity so that he can now begin to enjoy the National support he so much needs.
https://www.irohinodua.org/nnpc-world-bank-scam-media-group-writes-tinubu-calls-for-judicial-enquiry/
For me the situation is no longer that of Tinubu and APC alone it is now a struggle for all Nigerians.
It is a fight for our lives. We are being dragged into poverty at the speed of light and as such its no longer sensible to wait for the government alone to deliver us.
We now all must put our hands on deck to at least slow down the hurtling train before we find ourselves in Golgotha
But to achieve this, President Tinubu must show leadership.
He has to dismantle the ‘Lagos template’ and rebuild his team like the statesman that he should have been.
He has to rise above the shallow prisms of hollow minded engagements in appointments and policies and begin to build a more robust and expansive structure that would gather Nigerians around this fight.
It is not his fight, it is our fight but he must provide sincere leadership.
Thank you Chief Dele Momodu, that was a blast. Thank you so much
Duke of Shomolu
