In policy analysis and governance, low-hanging fruits or quick-wins are used to refer to decisions or actions that can be taken by new leaders because they are expected to have the highest potentials of achieving desired goals, with the least negative consequences. Either the context or other circumstances would have prepared them to be relatively easy to take as decisions or to simplify implementation.
New leaders or administrations build momentum or positive impressions by taking such decisions, particularly if they have devoted quality time and other resources in understanding policy and governance environments. Their major drawback is that they raise expectations that are more difficult to sustain. In such cases, they become double edged swords.
Some low hanging fruits are also best avoided, because they may have hung for long periods owing to their peculiar challenges, and other leaders have noticed and avoided them. Some low-hanging fruits may only exist because previous leaders and administrations have lowered the bar on quality of governance to very low levels, such that the tree and the fruits are all hanging low, and low-hanging fruits are poisonous.
The arrest of Godwin Emefiele is a good example of a low-hanging fruit. In the last few months, his best friends ( not beneficiaries and those who were also on their way out) can be counted on fingers of one hand. He had become the face of the economic policies that caused massive hardships and distortions in the economy, the most pronounced being the policy on currency re-print which came unstuck when President Buhari backtracked leaving an almighty mess and a period of suffering without parallel.
Everything Emefelie had touched before the nightmare that was the currency reprint, and thereafter, turned to poison. Virtually every Nigerian expected or hoped that all the awesome powers of Emefiele will be demystified and brought to book. Buhari had held on to him till the very end as if he was his trophy of insensitivity and abject failure to submit his stewardship to account and scrutiny. The man himself may have been guilty of supreme foolhardiness if he thought Tinubu would play with his team. Or, perhaps, The Team may have given him a false sense of comfort that he would, at worst, lose his job and celebrate it like a second life.
It may very well turn out that Emefelie is the weak link in the chain, and Tinubu has in his hand a low-hanging fruit that could bring down many other fruits. Just how many, and in what stage of maturation, may not be clear even to Tinubu. The elaborate linkages between the operations of the CBN and the entire network of key agencies, institutions, security and anti-corruption organizations, are, even without intimate knowledge, staggering.
The real challenge will be the possibility that it could literally bring the house down on top of a new administration still finding its feet out of a messy past towards a future that will be extremely difficult to build. The difference between a wholesale shake of the tree and a selective plucking of fruits will be President Tinubu himself.
Can he take on an entire establishment defined by plunder and impunity without risking a fight-back that may or may not damage him and blunt his personal integrity and other qualifications to fight pervasive corruption? The odds are stacked high against a President who has had a mixed image regarding his past activities and involvement with the affairs of Lagos State Government since 1999.
The muck that flew freely during the campaigns damaged him as well, but he can take comfort from the judgements of the courts and the very low bar which Nigerian voters set for their leaders.His presidency is not out of the woods yet, and there are powerful interests that would give anything to see him chart a course that will haunt his administration from its early days.
How far will President Tinubu be willing to go, and when? Nigerians will extend a period of grace to an administration which started by plucking one low-hanging fruit, the withdrawal of fuel subsidy, and in the process, made the lives of the population instantly more miserable. The Nigerian poor is baying for vengeance which only quick, comprehensive and appropriate punishments will assuage. It believes that there is evidence that years of theft and mismanagement had turned an otherwise tolerable policy into a gigantic drainpipe. Delays and hints that there are boundaries that he will be reluctant to cross will alienate him from a population that will not accept that there will be no penalties to pay.
Tinubu’s mandate from history could be the same as the one which Buhari betrayed: take on corruption in all its magnitude and eliminate it, or damage it beyond full-bloodied recovery in future. Tinubu’s task will be more challenging. Buhari came into the presidency with less baggage, and left Tinubu a country virtually paralyzed by corruption. Firing heads of government agencies and heads of security agencies are low-hanging fruits; the challenge is to find others who will be radically different in disposition towards indifference, impunity, abuse and corruption.
If Emefelie sings, former Ministers close and rotating in Buhari’s loose orbit, past and serving governors, past and present legislators, some in key positions today, heads of government agencies and top public servants, prominent businessmen, Buhari’s innermost circle, heads of law and order and security agencies, people who made huge money undermining national security and a few more who exploited huge gaps in the inefficiencies of the economy and regulatory agencies, will come tumbling down.
He could send ripples across the country and provide state governors with the impetus to ask difficult questions from predecessors. This may be one time when the argument that new administrations make greater haste if they do not look back will sound downright subversive to many Nigerians. It is also one that reminds us that a half-hearted fight provides a poor setting from winning anything of value. So the questions again: how far will Tinubu dare go? Who will have his back? Who can he trust to share his visions and not turn them into a personal asset?
Beyond low-hanging fruits lay difficult decisions that have the appearance of being popular and widely anticipated, but may be damaging to take without deeper scrutiny. One of these is the widely-misplaced perception that the Oronsaye Report is the key panacea to reducing the cost of governance. The high cost of governance is not the size or the structure of the public service, but the result of the massive structures involving 37 governments, massive corruption in all transactions and in-built inefficiencies in bureaucracies.
You can collapse and scrape agencies and parastatals as much as you want, but that in itself will not reduce the burden of governments. Another is the thinking that private sector philosophies and processes should be applied to all reforms of the public sector. Reforms are needed to improve efficiencies and reduce corruption, but private sector in Nigeria is as corrupt as the public sector.
You will need more than ‘smart thinking’ to address weaknesses of public sector assets and operations. Yet another is policy reform in public-owned universities that will raise the cost of university education. Policies here need to be informed by many critically-evaluated factors such as social impact, timing and public perception.
Finally, initiatives towards restructuring the country need very careful and sensitive handling. At all cost the perception that there is already a formula that should be applied here must be avoided if this important exercise is to produce useful results.
