At this point, frankly, it’s unrealistically optimistic to expect that Tinubu would reverse his punitive signature policies. If he can’t stop the fire he started, he should at least hand the most burned Nigerians some water.
By FAROOQ KPEROGI
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Femi Falana’s August 3 request to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to “approve not less than N5 trillion to fund the mountingly punishing effects of his twin policies of unsustainably extortionate petrol price hike and naira devaluation” has given me another discursive lifeline to write about an issue I had given up on.
As regular readers of my column would have noticed, there has been a significant diminution in both the numerical frequency and emotional intensity of my commentaries on economic issues, for reasons I’ll lay bare shortly. It suffices to say that I had resigned myself to the inevitability of the current state of affairs.
But if Falana, an esteemed Senior Advocate of Nigeria and vigorous advocate for everyday folks who has been treading this path for more than four decades, hasn’t given up, who am I to? Maybe, just maybe, if enough people sustain pressure on people in positions of power, they may be persuaded to reverse what seems like Nigeria’s intransigent march to economic perdition.
In his press statement, Falana recalled President Tinubu’s acknowledgement of the severe existential hurt that his policies have caused Nigerians and his appeal to APC governors to “wet the grass more and deliver progressive change to Nigerians.”
Falana used this presidential concession of the damaging effects of neoliberal policies to request two things: the funding of four mitigatory federal welfare programs already passed into law and ensuring “that the National Social Investment Programme Agency Act is adopted and enacted into law by the 36 state governments in Nigeria, rather than committing billions to renovating state houses while the masses wallow in abject poverty.”
These are reasonable demands to moderate the mass pain and sorrow that Tinubu’s policies have visited on the nation. At this point, frankly, it’s unrealistically optimistic to expect that Tinubu would reverse his punitive signature policies. If he can’t stop the fire he started, he should at least hand the most burned Nigerians some water.
You know this government is not ready to reverse course either out of pride or blind ideological commitment to neoliberal orthodoxy because it is now an obligatory rhetorical ritual for every government official and government apologist outside the orbit of the formal structures of government to preface every speech with an extolment of Tinubu’s “unprecedented,” “extraordinary,” “courageous” (take your pick) removal of subsidies and floating of the naira.
When the very wrongheaded policies that are the triggers for mass economic distress in the land have been promoted, almost as an official policy, as the objects of obligatory worship, as worthy only of saccharine praises, and as evidence of grand, unexampled presidential derring-do, you know change is not in the cards.
As someone who studies and teaches rhetorical communication, it seems to me that the government’s strategy of conceding that its economic policies are visiting unprecedented economic violence on a lengtheningly vast swath of people while subtly enforcing the ritual of praising those very policies in public speeches is deliberate.
Government officials, including the president, habitually admit just enough of the hardship people are going through to seem empathetic, but without undermining the core argument that the policies that caused the hardship are “necessary” or “beneficial.” The ultimate goal is, of course, to diffuse public anger by signalling, “We understand your pain” while continuing the same course of action anyway.
The injurious policies are then reframed as visionary, reformist, “necessary sacrifice for a better future,” short-term pain for long-term gain, “bitter medicine,” or “tightening our belts for national survival.”
This aligns well with what we call pathos-driven persuasion, which appeals to our sense of patriotism, resilience, and shared struggle, but often without any evidence of the long-term benefits that will arrive. Praise of the government’s hurtful policies is ritualized in order to normalize them, drown out or weaken dissent and, ultimately, create a one-sided, unchallenged narrative.
I have to give it to the government’s paid mind managers. They have been remarkably adept at devising a strategic mix of concession and what is called propaganda reframing to create the illusion of empathy by government officials while leaving untouched the harmful policies that caused the pain that they feign empathy toward.
So, their rhetorical strategy combines pathos (acknowledging the suffering of the people), ethos (appearing reasonable by doing so), and logos (claiming the suffering is necessary if Nigeria is to avoid collapse), but it’s ultimately manipulative, since their acknowledgment of harm doesn’t lead to policy change.
That was one of the major reasons I gave up talking about these issues. What’s the point of continually writing about an issue when nothing nudges even an inch? It’s like shouting into the void or watering dead plants.
But my interest was reignited because Falana hasn’t given up. Another reason is the urge to confront another beloved ritualized talking point of officials of the Tinubu administration, including Tinubu himself, which is the idea that the removal of fuel subsidies and the devaluation of the naira have put more money into the coffers of governors than at any time in Nigeria’s history.