INTERROGATING TINUBU’S “RENEWED HOPE” MASTER PLAN FOR A NEW NIGERIA

While opponents of the All Progressives Congress, APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, have been in the habit of making rather vague and sweeping statements intended to cast aspersions on his manifesto, christianed “Renewed Hope”, I am yet to encounter a single critique of the document which pointedly focuses on its contents. This is particularly surprising since an inability to fault the manifesto on its own merits thus necessitating rather selfevidently feeble resorts to bland and quite pedestrian criticism would indicate that it is actually a well thought-out plan of action that is extremely difficult to factually impugn even by Tinubu’s most implacable detractors!

Of course knowing the track record and antecedents of Bola Tinubu, I wouldn’t say I was at all surprised he would be the one, amongst the presidential candidates, to come up with such an actually attainable work plan. Nevertheless, I am still enthralled with the inescapable breadth of vision which frames the manifesto, quite apart from the fact that the entire document consistently discloses doable ways and means to the ends it rather most succinctly encapsulates.

Thus, for instance, regarding budgeting, Tinubu opines that the “budgetary custom” of Nigeria “bases our annual budget and fiscal policies largely on the dollar value of projected oil revenue. Not only does this practice artificially restrict the Federal Government’s fiscal latitude, it also unduly attracts the nation’s attention towards a single source of fiscal revenue to the detriment of others”.

What is the upgrade the “City Boy” offers to this age long and quite problematic budgetary template? Tinubu asserts that in order “to achieve optimal growth in the long term, we must wean ourselves from this limitation. A more efficient fiscal methodology would be to base our budgeting on the projected level of government spending which optimises growth and jobs without causing unacceptable levels of inflation.

As part of this prudent growth-based budgeting, we will establish a clear and mandatory inflationary ceiling on spending. However, we must break the explicit link between naira expenditure and dollar inflows into the economy. Much like the European Union has done, we too must be realistic and legislatively suspend the limits on government spending during this protracted moment of global economic turmoil exacerbated by domestic challenges in security, economy and demography”.

Whereas Labour Party’s Peter Obi, for instance, has been offering nothing but the most embarrassingly vague responses as to his vision for our country, and, indeed, even less as to how he might set about achieving whatever goals, if any, he has, Tinubu has set out a coherent template for resetting our national economy to the rebound. Thus, where Obi keeps sounding like a broken record, claiming he aims to move Nigeria from “consumption to production”, without advancing even the foggiest particulars for such an epochal paradigm shift in our national economic behavior, Tinubu specifically commits to curbing “our reliance on imported goods” amongst other clearly stated goals.

According to Tinubu “importation of non-essential products will be discouraged through policy measures including luxury taxes,higher tariffs, and higher processing fees. At the same time, international brands will

be incentivised with tax credits, rebates and other fiscal incentives to establish manufacturing plants in Nigeria both for export and to meet the needs of the large population of consumers in Nigeria and the wider ECOWAS region. We shall also enact new policies to exploit the framework provided by the African

Continental Free Trade Agreement(AfCTA) to further boost domestic manufacturing and production”.

This is, at the very least, a far more believable manual for retrieving our country from its chronic addiction to the importation of consumables we should be able to easily produce than the self-righteous pontifications of a man like Peter Obi, who, while being a fanatical importer of consumables, indeed one who has never manufactured anything in his entire life, nevertheless seeks to con us that he is actually the right man to take our country from consumption to production!

I recall Bola Tinubu’s acceptance speech at the Eagle Square, Abuja, after he had won the nomination of the APC. Tinubu told us that while we all like to drive around in SUVs, we forget that we do not even manufacture their brake pads in our country! Perhaps this remark particularly resonated with me because I happened to have been ferried to the convention that day in a bulletproof Toyota Land Cruiser and I found myself rather deeply sad at the incongruities that have become entrenched in our national economic model over many decades by poor economic policies aided by incurable importers of all manner of crap from toothpicks to toilet paper like Peter Obi!

Rather instructively, the People’s Democratic Party, PDP’s Atiku Abubarkar (a man said to actually be from Cameroon, whose country home is however in Dubai, according to his own spokesman), has brought forward absolutely nothing by way of a manifesto that might howsoever be remotely interrogated as to its realism. Of course he labours under the crippling handicap of completely lacking any executive experience to speak of, having spent the entirety of his tenure as Vice President plotting his boss’s downfall instead of assisting him in running the country. Between them, they squandered 16 billion dollars of our precious foreign reserves on electric power that no Nigerian has seen 15 years after they left office! Indeed, the entire quantum of Atiku’s career as a government worker, he somehow managed to have hitherto similarly squandered on breaking the law, breaching public service rules, and, aggrandizing himself. Otherwise, he busied himself undermining the nation his marabouts had convinced him he must rule!

While until recently, Peter Obi did not even have a manifesto anyone was to be able to produce, point to, or, cite in any particular or circumstance, Alhaji Atiku has one nobody seems interested in and which apparently no one has ever bothered to study, much less quote! In contrast, the Tinubu/Shettima plan encompasses all the critical sectors that must be addressed if national rebirth is to be our focus, going forward. Thus for instance, on taxation, Tinubu asserts that “during times of economic weakness, increasing taxation is counterproductive. Higher taxes drain an already weakened private sector, inviting possible economic contraction and higher unemployment. We shall review the corporate tax system and deploy technology and effective policies to better rationalise the system”.

Of course what will finally wean Nigeria off its rather disgraceful dependence on oil is increased production across other sectors of the economy attended by fair and just taxation for sustained national development. While Tinubu had already set himself apart by singlehandedly rewriting the approach to gathering the fiscus in our country, his profuse commitment to giving taxpayers value for their contribution to the commonwealth is reflected in the manifesto where he says: “We shall review the corporate tax system and deploy technology and effective policies to better rationalise the system.

Our aim shall be to create a progressive tax regime, plug harmful loopholes, enhance the efficiency of collection and give the people a greater sense of responsibility in relation to their taxes”.

This idea of giving “the people a greater sense of responsibility in relation to their taxes” underpins social contract theory even as it is the only viable political device for the preservation of democracy, itself! Indeed, it is only when the citizenry is satisfied that it is being given value for its contributions to the sustenance of their country and the preservation of its civilization that a genuine partnership between government and its principal, the governed, finally emerges to prime a nation for the actualisation of its potential, thus placing it on the path of sustained development and lasting progress. The Tinubu/Shettima “Renewed Hope” plan of action is replete with clear, concise and coherent elements of this philosophy of governance and indeed, the manifesto, both in its parts and entirety, showcases altogether credible aims, viable goals, feasible targets, workable intents and achievable objectives for finally placing this country on a strong footing for our long desired greatness.

Onokpasa, a lawyer and member, All Progressives Congress, APC, Presidential Campaign Council, writes from Abuja.

JESUTEGA ONOKPASA