GWG EDITORIAL: Buck-Passing Hunger Protest To Governors Not Judicious

The hunger protest in Nigeria now wobbling on account of decisive countermeasures by federal and state authorities is reckoned about the most successful protest in contemporary Nigeria’s history.

From across the country, Nigerians pulverized by the distressing economic and security conditions in the country poured out to the streets to ventilate themselves against the treachery of the political class across all levels.

The distress in the land has led to a diminution in the state of living of many Nigerians with the middle class essentially eviscerated leading to an insalubrious social framework allowing only the very rich and the poor.

In the last eight days, the poor with a sprinkling of conscientious beneficiaries of the elite class expressed themselves against the damaging policies that have brought Nigeria to its death knell by identifying with the hunger protest.

GWG.ng observes that the response of the authorities in Nigeria to the hunger protest has been rather unmelodious. The delayed presidential response, vide a national broadcast on the fourth day of the protest, Sunday, August 4 was generally unconvincing as it did not address any of the significant demands of the protesters.

GWG.ng affirms that the broadcast should have been an opportunity for President Bola Tinunbu to set timelines on how his twin policies of fuel subsidy removal and devaluation of the naira will bring succor to the citizenry. The broadcast was like a driver going toward the cliff telling his passengers that he had heard their cries but continued in his pace and pattern toward the cliff.

While the authorities have failed to give a concrete response to guiding the country away from the present alley, there have been subtle and sometimes not-too-subtle efforts by sympathisers of the federal administration to pass the buck to the nation’s 36 governors.

GWG.ng observes syndicated news commentaries and enablers of the federal administration casting light on the increased revenues accruing to state governments on account of fuel subsidy removal to defray blame for the hunger protest across Nigeria. This argument that is now being subtly marketed aims to remove the focus of the protesters from the federal administration to the governors as responsible for the hunger in the land.

Whereas some governors may have fallen short of responsibility to the governed, GWG.ng nevertheless rebuffs this buck-passing. The increment to the states has been matched with a corresponding increase to the Federal Government.

Under the existing revenue allocation formula, the federal tier gets 52.6%, the states 26.72%, and the local governments 20.6%.

The ill-advised removal of fuel subsidy in the same way it increased the allocations to the states also increased the amount in naira terms attributable to the federal government.

In that light, the attempt to shame the governors and states for inefficiency does not hold water.

In the real sense, the twin policies of fuel subsidy and naira devaluation that spurred the highest inflation rate in generations have submerged in real value what is going to the three tiers of government.

These twin policies that spurred the hunger protest in Nigeria were not mannered by the states but by President Bola Tinubu.

GWG.ng asserts that the federal administration should address itself to frontally redoing these monstrous policies that have reduced Nigeria and Nigerians rather than the subtle buck-passing to the governors that is now in full swing.

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