In a football match the first half break, however short is always an opportunity for both sides and their coaches and handlers to examine their weak pattern, flanks and enter the pitch with a renewed vigor and possibly a new pattern to defeat their opponent.
In a functional and developed democracy, the first half of an electoral calendar is always used to examine policies and programmes.
In fact, in the United States of America, half term assessment is always as good as testing the ground for the next election though on legislative basis.
For President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the first half of his rather eventful mandate secured in 2023 is turning more of an attempt by the ruling party and opposition to swell their ranks, build bridges, consolidate on their strong positions and plan for next election.
Little is heard of policy review and governance rejuvenation.
Instead, the last few months in Nigeria have been more of defections from opposition parties expected to prepare to oust the government to the ruling party.
Politics has become you chop -i -chop and politicians now look for where their bread is buttered.
Nobody wants to be on the losing side. Everybody wants to win.
On the part of the public, news about defection has created more interest than examining the performance of the ruling government and whether to return it to power or not.
Since Nigeria has always been an anomaly, critical and insightful analysis of policies and programmes has taken the back stage for emotions and sentiments to secure power.
Power is used to serve a purpose and the purpose stands defeated when it is not impactful of the citizenry.
This is the more reason why this column believes that for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to fully made a difference in governance, a critical reappraisal of policies and his governance structure and model is imperative.
In other words, he should not be carried away by the euphoria of defectors whose only goal is to be on the winning side if it will butter their bread.
It is significant that since President Tinubu thought it wise to appoint a Special Adviser on Policy Coordination in the person of Hadza Bala Usman and also reportedly appoint KPMG to assess the ministries, more time should be spent by the President and his think- thank on report of the two on how far the MDAs, parastatals have fared in policy implementation of his Renewed Hope Agenda.
Yes, while it is true that new policies need a gestation period of at least two years-the two years is here since policies were rolled out from the first day of assumption in office.
What is needed now is a renewed vigor to pursue implementation of programmes in Infrastructure, Education, Health and Poverty Alleviation to determine how far they’ve affected the polity before asking them for their votes in 21 months time.
Aside the allure of press reports, it is important for the President to measure impact of initiatives in Agriculture value chain and see if food has returned to the table of the vulnerable and also how far the policies have kept farmers in the farm.
Since security remains the first duty of any government, thinking out of the box to resolve the serious threat to national security as being experienced in at least four out of the six geopolitical zones of the country.
Why may we ask is insurgency assuming a new life in the Northwest, North East and South East with improving escalation in the South West?
If it is political influence, what engagement has been put in place to reduce its spread and impact of living?
Why is it that none of the states has made moves to establish state police?
Since almost all the states, have established and maintaining security outfits, has the powers of the Federal police already not being duplicated?
Questions also has to be asked on why with the improved generating capacity of 6000 megawatts of electricity, the DisCos have fallen short of distributing what they got from the TCN. To what extend will the N4Trillion bail -out for the DisCos solve the problem of utilizing the modest improve in generation?
Is the President considering unbundling, Transmission as it has done with other sectors to resolve the Power issue?
Why is it that none of the 36 states have initiated moves to generate, transmit and distribute power with the enabling law already place.
Are the states having problems with funding?
President Tinubu has a duty on his hands to find a solution as to why out- of- school children has increased in the country from 10.5m to almost 15 million today.
.If we all agree that education is crucial to fighting poverty, why is the Federal government finding it difficult to persuade ethno- religious Principalities and Powers especially in the North to embrace modern education.
Recently, the Academic Union of Universities, ASUU warned of an imminent strike over failure of successive governments to implement the 2009 agreement signed between it and Federal government on University funding.
Though, Tinubu has succeeded in keeping the University opened in the last two years, upgrading ASUU members’ salaries and emoluments without increased funding of the sector is counter- productive.
Shouldn’t the President divert funds from non performing and essential sectors to increase funding of our universities.
Why is this government like its predecessors eagerness establishing more universities than improve funding of existing ones?
Making a difference in our external reserves without a corresponding improvement in our standard of living is akin to killing the living for the unborn generation.
President Tinubu should in the next six months find a way of convincing state governors to release funding for local government councils if a review of his governance policies is to have any effect on the grassroots.
Since all politics is local, state governments today stand the best in impacting lives of the citizens than the Federal government.
Constant engagement with state governors on grassroots funding is crucial for the success of Tinubu administration.
He should know that like Yoruba adage: Oju lasan ko la fi ngba omo lowo ekuro –it is not easy to extract the kernel from the palm.
Since governors have put their sucking mouth on the LG through the joint State/local government accounts, it will take more than the Supreme Court judgement to make them have a change of mind.
President Tinubu should realize that duplication of state and local government functions at the Federal level is akin to strengthen Unitary system which bought us to where we are today.
A truly Federal state should genuinely devolve powers to its Federating units for development and progress.
