#Hardship: Beyond curses, destructive criticism; A contribution by a medical doctor and rights activist to Platforms Africa’s ‘Helping the Government to Succeed Series
What can the President do?
Caveat: I am not an Economist but in a profession where the effects of social strife and bad governance are most felt.
Where are we?
The economy lost steam with hyperinflation without growth. The citizens have very weak purchasing power as the currency was devalued by over 100%. The key aspects of the inflation are food and energy costs.
The most concerning effect of this is nationwide despondency as shown by citizens frustration, hunger and anger (frusthanger). In politics, “frusthanger” is the worst fear of any leader, it signifies the worst emotion of the electorate.
Hence, the President needs to halt the slide, feed the people and renew hope.
1. This is time to spend strategically to feed the people. A simple partnership between the States, LGs and Federal Government can achieve rapid distribution of food. Create Food Centers where common staples can be bought at good prices. Focus on maize, garri, sorghum, beans, rice. Call in the NGOs, FBOs.
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2. Involve the House of Assembly members, Rep and Senate to act at their constituencies. Deploy BVN or NIN to identify those in needs and prevent multiple disbursement to individual. The LGAs have CDAs, there are Counsellors in wards. There are House of Assembly etc. They must be used.
3. The main problem is corruption of the process and favouritism in distribution. Simple IT algorithm can resolve this. Everyone must go to his constituency and partake in food distribution / sales. There must be synchronization of their efforts. Monitoring at the constituency must be carried out and uploaded weekly for all to see as “The National & Subnational State of Food Supply”.
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4. The Minister of Information and Coordinating Minister of Economy with their counterparts in the states must give weekly update! Saboteurs must be treated as real criminal intent on disrupting the country. Where will the food come from? Our farmers, strategic reserve and importation. So sad that President Tinubu hurriedly acted on Niger, Mali, B/Faso who left ECOWAS . He needs them more especially at this time.
5. Push for availability of energy which is key to productivity. When is PH Refinery coming on? When are we going to resume petroleum refining? Can we create access to energy mix, like Solar? Encourage more financial institutions to finance solar installation at homes and offices. Of course, this creates jobs. Can state buy energy in bulk for strategic sector like food transportation and commuting? Can we have a voucher for commuters?
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6. The wars cannot finish. A Keynesian approach to stimulating production can be adopted by the government while implementing monetary policy to curb excess money supply.
7. Few other low hanging fruits include Disbursement of students loans and commencement of school feeding program. But we all know the big elephant, corruption!
8. We must also start a campaign that we all must Grow Something. In schools, we have farms. In urban schools, we can do Urban Farming and Hydrophonic farming of vegetables and fruits. There are techniques for all these. I remember how we used to do it in my primary and secondary schools.
9. And finally, it is clear that this Presidential Cabinet / Ministerial Team cannot do much. Rejig them.
PBAT must cut corruption and reduce cost of Governance. He surely needs the good optics especially now.
In empathy with the nation, he needs to be frugal personally, at the family level and in governance .
I hope he considers this seriously.
Dr. Omotuyi Mebawondu, a medical doctor of over 34 years and founder, Health FM Nigeria, is a foundation member of Platforms Africa forum
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