In times of grave national crisis as we find ourselves in Nigeria, presidential speeches are meant to be uplifting, re-assuring, offer and renew hope in the nation and its leaders and point to real silver linings amidst the hardship and prevalent gloom. Such speeches are opportunities for policy pronouncements, to change course in a course correction trajectory and to provide concrete and tangible alleviation measures not based on empty rhetoric. There are several posers; did the president address the systemic challenges and binding constraints that have accelerated the hardship? Any new policies and promises which are actionable or any re-modelling of existing policy measures in his speech? This discourse reviews the presidential speech made this 4th day of August 2024 and what it offered to Nigerians, especially the youth, who have lost hope in a government that states it came to renew hope in the nation and its institutions.

The president stated that the decisions leading to this untold hardship were necessary to reverse the decades of economic mismanagement. Everyone knows he is referring to the signature measures in the removal of fuel subsidy and floating of the naira. Majority of Nigerians seem to agree that these measures are necessary but what is missing is the pre and post measures and actions that should have preceded and followed the announcement of these two critical policy measures. Clearly what has happened is that the president, as a doctor started a surgery before remembering to administer the anaesthesia to numb the body and relive the pain. Even when reminded by the cry and wailing of the client who otherwise should have ben called a patient but now his victim, all he has are admonitions on the need for patience and enduring pain to enjoy good health later.

The above scenario is very critically demonstrated in the alternative fuel – compressed natural gas (CNG) initiative. It is still a promise to import and distribute the conversion kits, no sense of sequencing reforms and follow-up measures or need to hasten up the implementation of the policy, fourteen months after the infamous subsidy is gone pronouncement. Infamous in the sense that it was not properly planned. The same story we heard in 2023 is being retold in August 2024 and the story teller is convinced that enlightened citizens should take him seriously or he thinks we are babies who can be told everything and we have no capacity for reason based on available evidence.

The president reported that federal revenue has been in excess of N9.1trillion in the first half of 2024 meaning that FGN is on course to achieve the target revenue in the 2024 Appropriation Act considering that revenue projection is about N18trillion. This is a wonderful achievement. Pray, if this is true, why has there been little or no releases for capital expenditure across federal ministries, departments and agencies. The president claims to be blocking leakages at a time he is scandalously increasing the cost of governance in new ministries, jets and state of the art cars, being the first president to allocate votes for his wife in the budget. Furthermore, he states that our debt service obligation has reduced from 98% of revenue to 68% and thereby freed up more resources to be dedicated to education and health. But there is no evidence of increased spending on education or health. Rather, the 2023 budget figures are higher in real terms.

The president spoke about increases in oil production to 1.61mbpd, but his data is not supported by evidence from empirical sources which has put our production at far less than the figures he bandied. Again, he celebrates having attracted over half a billion-dollar foreign investment at a time a twenty-billion-dollar domestic investor in a refinery is almost being frustrated. The ministry of petroleum has mismanaged our petroleum resources under the ministerial leadership of our president. Nigerians expected PBAT to relinquish his ministerial position considering he has no competence and capacity to deliver in that ministry. He should have appointed a credible, competent and knowledgeable person to lead the ministry. The leadership of NNPC has no business continuing in office after their opaque, incompetent and derelict handling of our oil resources. Yet, the president was silent on all this scenario.

There was unbecoming silence on national security challenges which were complicating and compounding the economic hardship. Insecurity has played a central role in the hyper food inflation and our inability to meet basic food needs in grains, tubers, vegetables and fruits. No country imports its way out of a food crisis, especially countries that are experiencing foreign exchange scarcity. The expectation was that the presidents rejig the leadership of key security architecture or at least, give targets for the leadership, which should attract removal from office if the targets are not met. The president regaled us that tractors and planters have been imported from Brazil, Belarus and the United States of America. Celebrating imports as an achievement at a time this equipment could be fabricated locally is not a recipe for national development. The president alleges that fertilizers have been distributed and this raises the poser; who are the beneficiaries and what was the criteria for their identification?  

The president spoke about a plethora of acronyms; Skill Up Artisans Programme (SUPA), Nigeria Youth Academy (NYA), National Youth Talent Export programme (NATEP), Digital and Creative Enterprises Programme (IDICE), etc. But these are not new and they are supposed to be ongoing and providing succour when the bulk of the proposed beneficiaries are the ones championing the protest. Evidently, these programmes are paper tigers. They are not working or at best, they are working for an elect few who are politically connected.

In conclusion, the president merely justified his position, which is a position of poor performance, offered nothing new, promised no course correction and insists on continued administration of a failed medicine. I see no hope as the tunnel is too dark.