Madam Oluremi Tinubu has donated one billion to the University of Ife. She wants the university to use the money to restore its dying landscape. That’s thoughtful. That’s a good cause. But tongues are wagging. Our universities have become shabby shadows of themselves. Madam Tinubu is a rich woman.
But she could have stated if the donation was from her private purse or the wallet of the office of the first lady. People need to know how many yards of accolades she deserves. Naira has lost value, but One billion naira is a lot of money. Nigerians can’t be blamed for being suspicious of politicians, their wealth and their charity. The country is tough; anything that has a whiff will be sniffed.
If the money is from the First Lady’s office, that’s good, too. The office may be unconstitutional, but it often gets good money. It got 1.5 billion naira to buy cars late last year. It got 700 million naira and converted it to dollars to finance the first lady’s five foreign trips in three months. Some called it profligacy. But if you stand on ‘the mandate’, you might see it differently. Let me commend the First Lady for remembering her former school.That money could have been used for a frivolous foreign trip. Or to buy an honorary doctorate from a foreign university.
If the donation is from her purse, then she deserves real accolades. That will be sacrificial giving. The Igbo say ‘ when you thank a woman for doing good she will do more’. Regardless of this useful adage, some political nosy parkers are bound to ask how she made so much more to have a ton to donate for landscaping. Perhaps the nosey parkers are the benign guys with no heart for a grudge. Because many others who won’t ask will sneer and live with the assumption that the money is our money.
That’s why I would have advised Madam Tinubu to simply say she would restore the university’s landscape naming a figure. But politicians like to do notice-me charity. And I don’t blame her since a loquacious fellow might someday ask her what she did for the university that produced her. You know young people like to ask elders rude questions.
Now, she can retort with a smirk that she gave one billion naira. And that should shut up such a hater. But having named the figure, some restless political opponents of her husband might like to know how much she pays in taxes. They will forget that many other wives of big politicians have done nothing for their decaying alma maters. And could have spent twice that figure hosting some idle wives of ECOWAS presidents in Abuja for a weekend.
But beyond acts of ambiguous philanthropy and, perhaps, gardening, Madam Tinubu should get involved. She is a pastor. When Mrs Aisha Buhari noticed that hyenas and jackals had captured her husband, she cried out loud. Nothing remarkably redemptive came out of that, but at least she cried. Nobody can blame her today for the mess her husband left for President Tinubu because she told Nigerians not to sit idly while wild predators held the president hostage and ravaged the country. The fault must be ours. Madam Tinubu must learn from that.
Nigeria is drifting. Governments at all levels have resorted to ritual rice distribution as if the country is one vast refugee camp. It appears politicians have misread the public. Perhaps the pauperised citizens now all look like refugees. But cash and rice handouts wont scratch the surface of the crisis. Donating money to wretchedly funded public schools or hospitals is good, but it won’t relieve Mrs Tinubu of the burden of guilt. The rot is systemic. She needs to tell her husband that his cabinet is bloated and uninspiring. He might have inherited a mess, but he has casually and insouciantly complicated it.
Mrs Tinubu said her husband isn’t greedy. I believe her. She is a credible pastor. Pastors can sniff greed from a mile. Mrs Tinubu had at the outset said they didn’t need the country ’s money. Possibly, they have more than enough. That was such a reassuring statement at the inauguration service that I started to dream of Wakanda. But Mrs Tinubu should advise her husband that awarding a contract of 15 trillion to his business partner without an iota of competition and modicum of transparency is sinful. It doesn’t speak of contentment. Such acts feed grist to the rumour mills. Our president once said he was richer than Osun state, so he shouldn’t give room to his detractors to question his integrity. The man on the street cannot believe that Tinubu awarded that 15 trillion coastal road contract to his crony without due process, out of the love of the country alone.
Mrs Tinubu should have mentioned to her husband that buying a new jet while he was asking hungry Nigerians to sacrifice would be deemed selfish. On medical tourism, she needs to tell her husband to beware of emulating Buhari. Buhari couldn’t build a hospital to provide medical care for himself. He spent eight years, belittling the country, running to London hospitals to receive medical attention. His wife couldn’t stop him but she didn’t keep quiet. She blamed us for wasting billions on the state house clinic, and we clapped for her.
Mrs Remi Tinubu would endear herself to all poor people in this country if she helped to espouse frugality by checking the lifestyle of her immediate family and inspiring the wives of governors to exhibit prudence and simplicity. The country ’s poor don’t need handouts. The country needs a cultural transformation. The country needs leaders who can champion social justice by personal examples.
The First Lady should mobilize the wives of governors. Time is running out. The poor are hungry and angry. They can’t see transformational leadership. They only see hypocrisy and shenanigans. They can’t see probity and transparency. They only see embezzlement and crass opportunism. They can’t see transformational politics. They only see buccaneering designs for electoral conquests at all costs. The First Lady lady should step out of gardening and landscaping; there is a fire on the mountain. She shouldn’t chase rats.
Crude partisan politics has divided the country. Democracy has become a sham. Elections have increasingly become charades. The national moral fabric is in tatters. Changing the national anthem was another piece of cosmetic self indulgence. The parties have fallen into moral disrepair. Critical institutions have been undermined by greed, corruption and favouritism. We can’t ignore the country ’s political elephantiasis of the scrotum to do pedicure. The first lady is a pastor. The men are engrossed in political rivalry. She can champion national unity. She can champion reconciliation. She can champion political truth-telling.She can choose one and give it her best shot.
Recently Tinubu’s aides have been churning out alternative facts and figures. Ribadu said the government had eliminated 300 commanders of insurgency and banditry, and Nigerians could safely travel wherever they liked anytime they wanted. Someone told Tinubu he had attracted 30 billion dollars in FDI. Someone told him he had stabilized the naira. He has been seduced into a false sense of security. Who knows how many other outlandish tales he has consumed. Perhaps he now believes he is on his way into the Guinness Book of World Records.
If Madam Tinubu can’t champion other causes like national unity, as I have proposed, because I have underestimated the complexity of the problem, then she must break through the cordon of propaganda and help her husband by telling him the truth. That might be enough.
Dr Ugo Egbujo.
