Tortoise and the $1 Billion Rain That Came After the Harvest

The launch of Nigeria’s $1 billion Household Prosperity and Empowerment Social Protection Project, or HOPE-SP, turned Abuja’s State House Banquet Hall into a stage for presidential triumph.

Festus Adedayo describes an atmosphere of carefully orchestrated jubilation around First Lady Pastor Remi Tinubu, whose khimar moved with her as she paced the rostrum. The column treats the scene as a vivid symbol of the administration’s effort to present the new social protection project as tangible hope for Nigerians.

The launch comes three years and three months after President Bola Tinubu ended the petrol subsidy. Adedayo recalls Tinubu attributing that decision, during an unscheduled trip to France, to a spirit that suddenly came over him. The $1 billion project now serves as the administration’s loudest signal that the economic pain associated with its policies can be answered with direct support.

The column also places HOPE-SP inside a political contest. To government loyalists, it is described as an ultimate answer to Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi and other critics who have spent months attacking the president’s economic policies. Atiku, whom Adedayo portrays through a series of mocking comparisons, is depicted as persistently examining the presidential family’s political and economic record.

Adedayo’s writing is openly satirical. He uses the image of money as a drumbeat and turns the First Lady’s scarf into a participant in the celebration. The result is less a technical account of the project than a sharply drawn portrait of the excitement surrounding its launch and the political pressure it is meant to withstand.

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What’s better than money?