APC Regime: One Year Of Extreme Pain In Nigeria

By Adeola Aderounmu

One year after the official emergence of the All Progressives Congress (APC) mandate, the most unexpected scenarios are here. The current situation in Nigeria today was unimaginable 12 months ago when the expectations and stakes were raised through the emergence of the APC mandate.

*Tinubu and Buhari 

Even my invented slogan that the 1999-2015 Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) years were the worst years of the Nigerian life had been beaten flat. What Nigerians have experienced in 2016 alone is by all measure the worst year of the Nigerian life.

What led to these unexpected new lows of general sufferings is arguable. But the degradation of human life, extremely high cost of living and endless surges of joy-killers like the fuel-related problems are both sad and regrettable.

My opinion is that if there had been adequate proactive-ness, Nigerians would not be suffering more today than they already did under the wasteful 16 years of PDP. The APC-Buhari mandate was ill-equipped for the year that went by. Therefore the mandate becomes a questionable one, I’m afraid.

My opinion is premised upon the fact that the APC-mandate and the rest of us had a clear understanding of what the challenges ahead were. We knew that Nigeria was in bad shape. Our collective expectation was that things should not get worse because they were already bad.

The APC-mandate failed to curb a bad situation. So it grew worse and it’s still going down the road to perdition in so many uncountable ways.

What enlightened and knowledgeable Nigerians must do now is to see the current situation in Nigeria as an opportunity to access the country right from 1960 to date. Why Nigeria got into the mess it is now is no longer rocket science.

Primarily, the country was misruled by almost all the regimes that have held sway at one time or the other after independence in 1960. As if the colonial drainage was not enough albeit side-a-side remarkable infrastructure development, the indigenes of Nigeria chose to simply loot the country to dryness.

As you read, Nigeria is being looted by some elements either directly by their positions in government or indirectly by the failure of the system to curb external appendages of looting.

The crime of looting is so grave that the recovered cash that was revealed recently by the APC government is a tip of the iceberg of what actually disappeared under both the APC- and the PDP-states in the last 17 years.

Politicians on both fronts practically emptied the states treasuries daily. At the parasitic center, the Jonathan-led central PDP government wasted and looted Nigeria’s monies in no manner that were different from his predecessors both civilians and military.

Everything that has a beginning will have an end. When the APC-Buhari mandate is over (because it will be), we will surely be informed of how much went down the drain daily. That, and what went down in the APC terrains whilst PDP held swayed are top secret today. We are looking the other way because the bulk of the latter brought Mr. Buhari to power.

In Nigeria, anybody who is elected or selected as the president can play god. It’s all thanks to the system. But I love the concept of time and truth. They outlive everyone and everything.