Appraising Buhari's One Year In Office

By Lucky Ofodu 

One word can be aptly used to appraise President Mu­hammadu Buhari’s one year in office: discontent. Nigeri­ans are thoroughly disappointed by the turn of events. The President and his party the APC had prom­ised so much, but so far fulfilled so little. The economy is in bad shape. Power is in bad shape; the naira in bad shape; inflation is on a steady rise. The Chibok girls are still in cap­tivity. Let’s not mention the unprec­edented fuel scarcity because doing so leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. It has been a litany of woes. There is a feeling of general discontent across the land.

 

*Buhari

I do not expect the president to mark his one year in office with the same grandeur and panache that ushered him into office because the truth be told, he has not lived up to expectation. The President knows that Nigerians were better off be­fore he came to the scene. They have been inflicted with a lot of pains this past twelve months. What is hap­pening now seems a repeat of what was, when Mr. President ruled as a military head of state in the early 80s when Nigerians were made to queue in the rain and sun to buy bever­ages like milk, sugar, oats and the like, which they hitherto could buy from the shop next door. If nothing is done, sooner we will queue for food and possibly air.

Part of the problem is the fact that the president has surrounded himself mostly with yes-men and propagandists. The latter are those misinforming and making him see nothing, absolutely nothing good about the Jonathan administration. As a result, the president is in a hur­ry to change a lot of things, and in the process making mistakes. He forgets that while everything may be possible, everything is not expe­dient. For example, the sack of Vice chancellors and the dissolution of governing councils of federal uni­versities which he apologized for. There are some others. These mis­takes tend to have deeply divided Nigerians along ethnic, religious and political lines.

These propagandists in the last one year diverted the attention of the president from the core issue of governance which is to better the lives of the citizenry. They pushed him to go after political opponents in the name of fighting corruption. This is all Nigerians have heard in the last one year without any tangi­ble result. No one is saying that those who looted the country’s treasury should not face the consequenc­es. No. what is being said is that it ought not to have become the only focus amidst so many other chal­lenges. Besides, it ought not to have been targeted at political opponents only. After all, many of those shout­ing ‘change’ and ‘corruption’ today, were in the opposition party hold­ing very exalted offices for years be­fore decamping only recently to the ruling party. How come these per­sons are not investigated and pros­ecuted. Or does cross-carpeting to the ruling party make one corrup­tion- free?

The President am sure is feeling the purse of Nigerians. He knows they are dissatisfied with the state of things no matter how the prop­agandists try to paint it. He should listen to them and do the needful: al­leviate their suffering. It is becoming unbearable. Enough of the excuses and the apologies please!

Furthermore, the president should shun the praise of propa­gandists, sycophants and rumour-mongers. He should not see any sec­tion of the country as his enemies as some have made him believe. By age and experience, one expects the president to be above political sen­timents and bigotry. He should see and do things from the perspective of a leader not a partisan politician. Also, he should drop some ministers who by their age are not in tune with the demands of present-day realities.

This administration still has three years to right its wrongs, and to con­solidate on its achievements if any. Let us just assume that the last one year was used to cross the t’s and dot the i’s. In his Easter message, the President admonished Nigeri­ans that his change agenda would work if “citizens imbibe the virtues of Jesus Christ and place nation­al interest above selfish, person­al and group interest”. This is true. But what is truer is that the Presi­dent himself and leaders of his party especially need this admonishment more because they tend to be paro­chial in their attitude and utteranc­es and additionally, blame the short­comings of this administration on the opposing party. This is becoming rather boring. This APC- led gov­ernment must start delivering on its numerous promises. That is why the recent assertion by the APC chair­man-John Odigie-Oyegun that the untold hardship being experienced by Nigerians is a necessary sacri­fice for ‘change’ can be viewed as a blatant display of sheer callousness on the plight of ordinary Nigerians. They cannot continue to make sac­rifices while senators are busy buy­ing brand-new Jeeps for themselves at this critical time with tax payers money. Too much of a sacrifice is nothing but punishment!

Ofodu is a public affairs com­mentator