Wale Musa

If I were a serious presidential candidate challenging Tinubu today, my two biggest promises would be simple: 1. Return fuel subsidy to its pre-2023 level. 2. Peg the naira. Atiku has tried to make a case for the first one, but he is understandably reluctant to put a figure on it. Sowore and the SDP guys are, politically speaking, inconsequential. Tinubu is in pole position, but Atiku and Obi still have sizeable political bases. So, if I were in their shoes, I would make Nigerians a very attractive promise: “I will bring petrol down to ₦300 per litre.” And to achieve that, I would simply peg the naira at ₦300/$1 — by fiat. After all, Tinubu has accumulated enough reserves to defend the naira for at least two years. Today, a litre of petrol is almost equivalent to a dollar. So I won’t really be “paying subsidy.” I will simply be defending the naira with the reserves Tinubu and Cardoso worked so hard to accumulate. Leadership is not rocket science. On the day of my swearing-in, I would do the exact opposite of what Tinubu did at Eagle Square. I would announce: “SUBSIDY IS BACK!” There would be jubilation across Nigeria. People would start taking their abandoned generators to mechanics. Of course, reducing petrol from ₦1,300 to ₦300 wouldn’t happen overnight. For the first year, petrol marketers would probably still be selling old stock. So I would immediately set up a task force to crack down on the “shylock” marketers. And then… Fuel scarcity would return in full force. “Leadership is not rocket science.” Nigerians would queue for hours at NNPCL stations while black-market sellers charge ₦1,500+. In solidarity, I would join them in the fuel queues. After about a year, perhaps normalcy would return. Then, by my third year in office, the FX reserves would be depleted. Dollar scarcity would return. The institutions willing to lend us dollars would disappear. The aboki would become king again. He could sell his dollar for ₦2,000 while the official rate remained ₦300. And if you couldn’t find a dollar at ₦300, simply pretend you could. Nothing is actually real in life. Under Tinubu, $1 billion earned from crude sales at roughly ₦1,300/$ translates to about ₦1.3 trillion. Under my government, the same $1 billion would become ₦300 billion. So all those complaints about governors receiving too much money would disappear. They would return to the good old days of struggling to pay salaries. Governors and their families would be hungry. Imported goods would become ridiculously cheap. A bag of foreign rice could theoretically sell for ₦15,000. Local industries would collapse because nobody could compete with cheap imports. But I would advise the workers: “Go and farm. That is our destiny.” Let us leave industrialisation for oyinbo. Of course, tax revenue would crash as imports destroy local production. But that’s not a problem. There would be no money left for politicians to loot anyway. Minimum wage? Back to ₦20,000. Labour would protest. But… “Leadership is not rocket science.” I promised Nigerians a four-year term. Then the CBN’s dollars would dry up. Fuel scarcity would return. Industries would shut down. Salaries would stop. Construction would grind to a halt. Protests would erupt everywhere. And I would travel abroad for two weeks. Shave my beard. Return looking completely different. By the time I got back, Nigerians could call me Ghost of Congo or Igwe from Congo. After my tenure, I would leave my successor to either clean up the mess I created or swim inside it. After all… Leadership is not rocket science. Anyone who thinks leadership is rocket science is probably the reason they say: “Common sense is not common.”