There are many who believe that Nigeria has been on autopilot in the last few years with no one seemingly interested in steering the wheel of governance in a particular direction. The country- in the views of this category of analysts- has been abandoned completely by those who traversed its length and breadth in the 2015 electioneering campaign- asking young Nigerians “to give them the opportunity to show that Nigeria can work in their lifetime.” If anything- contend the people who hold this understanding- the very people who promised to fix Nigeria if elected into power have done more than anyone else to break it further apart, pillage its resources like pirates and are quietly watching it bleed to death after a few years of mindless buccaneering and sabotage.
While there are many who insist that the seed of the current disaster besetting Nigeria was sown long ago and that there is very little President Muhammadu Buhari and his party can do in four years to fix a country long broken by greed and insensitivity of the ruling class, it has become increasingly unreasonable to make any sane excuse for Buhari and the APC after they have managed to break all previous records of mis-governance and a mindboggling insensitivity to the plight of the very people they promised to use the instrument of government to fight for and protect.
Many consider it absurd that a party that promised Nigerians change at several campaign stops in 2015 only managed to sow misery and gnashing of teeth in the land. From turning a once prosperous nation into the global capital of extreme poverty with close to a hundred million citizens living below the poverty line, mismanaging the war against terrorism and insecurity amongst other demonstrable evidence of leadership failure at the highest levels, the APC has managed to convince millions of non-partisan Nigerians that the popular choice they made at the poll in 2015 was the wrong call.
In all honesty, it is almost impossible to rationalise Nigerian electorates’ decision to return Buhari to power in 2015- 30 years after he was booted out by his military colleagues led by Ibrahim Babangida who accused him (Buhari) in a televised broadcast of being grossly incompetent, parochial and deaf to genuine advice. Judging by what we see today, it does appear that Babangida and his co-conspirators were spot on in their judgment of the person of Buhari and his leadership template.
Having observed general Buhari’s style and approach to governance since 2015, there is little reason to believe that the “old soldier” learnt anything in the intervening years. It is doubtful if he did any other thing other than nurse grudges and plot revenge against those he believed masterminded the downfall of his illegitimate government in August 1985. It is clear that General Buhari never took any measure to improve personally nor keep pace with the demands of leadership in a modern world.
A trending video of the Nigerian president misinterpreting what he was asked at a recent UN event where he elected to read a prepared speech that was totally unrelated to the question asked is forcing many to further question the cognitive capability of the man running the affairs of a nation said to have a population of 200 million people.
It is a shame that climate change is not the only global issue President Buhari is largely ignorant of. Shortly after his election in 2015 at an event in faraway America, Buhari effectively told Nigerians from certain sections of the country not to expect to be treated fairly for “refusing to vote for him.” Buhari in New York in June 2015 unashamedly announced that his presidency shall be underpinned by the 97%/5% formula with greater privileges and perks of governance going to those who gave him 97% of the votes while those that gave him “only 5%” can only expect to be “given what is prescribed for them in the constitution.”
It is little wonder that for the first time since the return of democracy in 1999, the South East region does not have a single representative in the country’s security team. Buhari makes no pretence of the fact that he sees certain sections of the country as “his constituency,” while he shows troubling indifference to what happens in regions where he has traditionally struggled for votes since he began his presidential pursuit in 2003.
If electing Buhari and the APC in 2015 was a grave error as many have now come to understand, re-electing him and his party in 2019 may turn out to be the biggest injustice the current crop of voters may have done against the country’s unborn generations. Buhari has shown clearly that he does not care about Nigeria and whatever future awaits it.
As a South African commentator- Cecil Russel once said, Buhari is the only president who makes rare “guest appearances in his country.” Many have tried to argue that what we have in Buhari’s Nigeria is poor governance but I prefer to look at what is happening as “absence of governance,” and the recent Xenophobic attacks on Nigerians in South Africa recently further confirms this.
If Nigeria had been a country with strong leadership, South Africa would not have gotten away with the decision to stand idly by and watch its citizens take the cudgels and machetes against Nigerians living in their country. A Nigeria ruled by someone who understands what it means to play on the international scene would have given the South African authorities so much to chew on that going forward, they would make the protection of the lives and businesses of Nigerians in that country a priority.
It is an embarrassment that under the reign of a “strong military general,” Nigerians were hounded like orphans and the best response from the government in Abuja was a tame media statement and other laughable gestures.
It is indeed tragic that a president and party that have demonstrated to be gravely wretched in matters of governance have proven to be adept at crude politicking.
How does anyone rationalise the fact that a party that recently won an election after making series of promises to Nigerian have now cleverly abandoned those electoral pledges and are already plotting for the next election in 2023?
Professor Yemi Osinbajo’s travails, Nasir El Rufai going to enrol his son in a public school in Kaduna, Babatunde Fowler being queried on declining tax revenue at FIRS, rumours of Tunde Bakare replacing Yemi Osinbajo and eventually taking over from Buhari in 2023 and other bizarre headlines that have dominated the news space in the last one month are all careful political calculations as powerful interests strategically position for the 2023 polls.
Why is anyone thinking about 2023 when the APC has spent less than six months on their renewed 4 year mandate? How many of the electoral pledges made to Nigerians by Buhari at campaign grounds across the country have been fulfilled?
Isn’t it strange that no one is asking President Buhari and his party how they manage to push Nigeria’s unemployment figure to an unprecedented height (23.1%) after promising to create 3 million jobs every year in 2015? Is Ajaokuta Steel Mill working now? How many megawatts has the current leadership added to the national grid after telling Nigerians they have the template to push the country into generating 20 thousand megawatt four years ago? How about the exchange rate and naira’s continue decline against international currencies? What is Buhari doing to stop the termites of inflation and exchange rate from chalking away the wealth of Nigerians? What has Buhari and the APC done for Nigeria’s education sector? How many new Ph. Ds do public universities in the countryemploy every year? How many hostels has the FG built to accommodate the burgeoning students’ population in campuses?
The recent closure of the borders has exposed the lie that Nigeria is now food sufficient under the Buhari administration. Now we know that the country has been feeding on imported food items following the jump in the price of rice, frozen food, vegetable oil and others in the last one month.
The fact that the government is now actively negotiating with bandits (or terrorists) who killed thousands of people in the North has also disclosed that the regime has no effective strategy to protect Nigerians. What kind of government rewards criminals?
Nigerians are enjoined to arise and defend their country from the buccaneering activities and ineptitude of the current administration by asking questions, insisting that the ruling party fulfils its promises to Nigerians and that the president must be accountable to the people at all times. That reminds me: why are media interactions and periodic chats with the president as we saw during the years PDP presidents were in power no longer obtainable with the Buhari presidency? Why is the Nigerian president refusing to speak to Nigerians?
Answers to all the posers are as important in similar way as oxygen is toliving lungs!