Tinubu’s dilemma: Of grand visions and ground realities

BY ABDULHALEEM ISHAQ RINGIM

During the seventh edition of the Kaduna Investment Summit (KADINVEST 7.0) held in October 2022, His Highness Emir Muhammad Sanusi II, the Emir of Kano, reminded the audience of the grim realities facing the Nigerian economy and presented sobering projections for the country’s economic future if the current mismanagement continued. The emir emphasised that any politician who downplays these realities and portrays solving them as an easy task should not be trusted.

In setting the stage for then-presidential candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s remarks, Governors Bagudu and Badaru attempted to counter the emir’s data-driven analysis with an uninspiring rebuttal that lacked substance, relying instead on political theatrics and empty rhetoric. When Tinubu took the stage, he acknowledged the challenges but suggested they were easily solvable, yet offered no concrete economic crisis management or mitigation plan.

In 480 B.C.E., Xerxes I, the Persian King determined to invade Greece, was cautioned by his uncle and advisor, Artabanus, just as he was about to cross the Hellespont. Artabanus warned of numerous risks, including unfamiliar terrains, insufficient supplies, and the exhaustion and starvation that would likely occur from traversing seas and lands that could not sustain such a large army. Xerxes, dismissing these concerns, replied: “If you were to take account of everything…you would never do anything. It is better to have a brave heart and endure one half of the terrors we dread than to calculate all of them and suffer nothing at all. Big things are won by big dangers.” He crossed, invaded, and ultimately failed—falling victim to all that Artabanus had predicted.

John Lewis Gaddis, in his book On Grand Strategy, elaborates on Isaiah Berlin’s conception of the hedgehog and the fox, defining them as the difference between those who view the world through the lens of a single, unifying idea (the hedgehog) and those who draw on a wide variety of experiences and ideas (the Fox). In Gaddis’s categorisation, Xerxes was a hedgehog, focused on the grand idea of invading Greece, while Artabanus was a fox, emphasising the imperative of situational awareness before the invasion.

Interestingly, the Tinubu-Sanusi exchange mirrors that of Xerxes and Artabanus on many fronts. Tinubu, in typical hedgehog fashion, was focused on winning the presidential election with a central vision encapsulated by the “Renewed Hope” slogan, which seemed disconnected from the situational realities that Sanusi, the fox in this case, and others emphasised in the buildup to the election. All Tinubu saw was a vision of himself solving Nigeria’s problems without fully considering the true state of the country and economy, the resource imperatives for solving the problems and their availability, the conformity (or not) of the prevailing sociopolitical configuration with his reform plan and other critical factors.

While it would be unfair to judge the success of his administration at this nascent stage, it is clear that some of his landmark policies have not yielded the desired results. The combined effects of these policies—the removal of the fuel subsidy and the adoption of a managed floating exchange rate regime—have led to widespread dissatisfaction with the country’s economic situation, sparking protests across Nigeria, particularly in the north, where tensions turned heated and violent. Although the policies may have been well-intended, their implementation has produced outcomes that now demand a strategic review.

The “subsidy is gone” pronouncement by the president during his inaugural speech immediately led to a sharp increase in petrol pump prices, which, in turn, caused significant hikes in the production costs of commodities and transportation. This exacerbated the already high inflationary pressures in the country. The subsequent floating of the Naira against the dollar further fueled inflation through imported inflation, given Nigeria’s unhealthy dependence on imported goods.

These effects were initially expected to stabilize over time. The removal of the subsidy was intended to unlock greater revenues for socioeconomic development, while the new exchange rate regime was supposed to allow the Naira to find its true value in the foreign exchange market, thereby enhancing stability, improving global confidence in the Nigerian economy, and attracting foreign investments.

One of the goods most affected by the government’s exchange rate policy was petrol itself (our biggest import), yet again, which saw a further price hike due to the naira’s devaluation. The conflicting effects of these policies have significantly impacted the livelihoods of citizens, compounding other socioeconomic issues such as insecurity and food inflation. Additionally, the Central Bank’s restrictive monetary policy, intended to curb inflation, only appears to be attracting foreign portfolio investments into the fixed income markets, creating a facade of stability via increased hot forex inflows while failing to address the root causes of inflation.

In his book, Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy, Henry Kissinger argues that every political system is in perpetual transit between “a past that forms its memory, and the vision of a future that inspires its evolution.” The function of good leadership, I deduced, is the successful navigation of the system towards a future that is bright. He further explains that “leaders think and act at the intersection of two axes: the first, between the past and the future; the second, between the abiding values and aspirations of those they lead.” Whether or not a leader aligns with the aspirations of the people, they are expected to adopt the principles of Grand Strategy, which Gaddis defines as “the alignment of potentially unlimited aspirations with necessarily limited capabilities.”

Were President Tinubu’s aspirations, as exemplified by these two policies, examined for alignment with the capabilities of the economic system? Is this a case of premature load-bearing in policy implementation, exerting a tremendous burden on an economic structure that cannot yet support it—a classic case of being stuck in a capability trap?

Perhaps if President Tinubu had listened more to the likes of Emir Sanusi, who were willing to complement his hedgehog disposition with some fox-like tendencies by offering lessons in situational awareness, he might have approached things differently. Had he also recognised that the intellectual capital he amassed from previous experiences, including his time as the Governor of Lagos, was insufficient for the challenges at hand, he might have understood that his grand vision was akin to knowing his destination was north but only having a compass to guide him. With this awareness, he might have tempered his heightened yet unsubstantiated optimism and fortified his approach before the elections.

As in the case of Xerxes and his uncle Artabanus, Lewis accurately deduced that “Xerxes was right. If you try to anticipate everything, you’ll risk not accomplishing anything. But so was Artabanus. If you fail to prepare for all that might happen, you’ll ensure that some of it will.” What was required of Xerxes, and what is still required of leaders like Tinubu, is what F. Scott Fitzgerald described as first-rate intelligence: “The ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” This means combining, in Lewis’ words, “within a single mind, the hedgehog’s sense of direction and the fox’s sensitivity to surroundings”—all while retaining the ability to function effectively.

Given that the subsidy removal lasted only two months before subsidy payments resumed due to the risk of further hikes in petrol prices beyond what the public could endure, rendering the policy statement void and the policy itself a failure, and that the exchange rate is still unstable, it is time for President Tinubu to break free from the shackles of the groupthink phenomenon – this collective mindset, where the President and his cabinet members and aides think in the same direction, has hindered effective policy evaluation – and review his policies with Grand Strategy principles in mind.

Abdulhaleem Ishaq Ringim, a public policy enthusiast, he writes from Zaria and can be reached via [email protected]